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St. Cloud buses keep carousers out of driver’s seat

Carlos Gonzalez, Star Tribune

From left, David Biegler, 22, James Warren, 23, John Ford, 22, Steve Orson, 22, and Mitch Brum, 23, rode the Late Nite bus in St. Cloud on Thursday night on their way to downtown St. Cloud. Biegler, Ford and Orson, students at St. Cloud State University, ride free; nonstudents pay 85 cents.

More colleges are offering free or low-cost buses so students have a safe way home after a night of drinking.

By Emily Banks, Star Tribune

Last update: March 16, 2008 - 12:57 PM

ST. CLOUD -- It's just before 11 p.m. Thursday, and a group of twentysomethings is hustling to catch the bus headed downtown. They've already started drinking, and one student carries a sports-drink bottle. The original contents have been replaced.

They regularly make this trip on St. Cloud's Late Nite route, which is finishing its second month of service this weekend. Before the late-night bus, they'd take a taxi that cost as much as $10.

"This bus is amazing! It's free," said Steve Orson, 22, a St. Cloud State University student. His friends echo a similar, raucous chorus.

Alcohol-related deaths at colleges across Minnesota and Wisconsin, including St. Cloud State, have led the schools and cities to offer transportation options intended to get students home safely after nights on the town.

At St. Cloud State, student fees fund the bus service, so it feels free when students swipe their IDs as they board the bus. Nonstudents pay 85 cents.

But it's not just the cheap ride that attracts them to what St. Cloud State students commonly call "the drunk bus."

"If you drink and drive and get pulled over ... that's three grand minimum," James Warren, 23, said.

And for one of the students in his group, that's an all-too-familiar reality. At 21, John Ford was ticketed and charged with driving under the influence.. Now, he's a bus patron -- taking it downtown to the bars and back home after they close.

The buses, which run from 8:45 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, have been averaging about 250 riders a night.

"That's 250 less people that are walking through yards," said Sgt. James Steve of the St. Cloud Police Department, "250 people we know are getting a safe ride from point A to point B."

St. Cloud State's student government had been working on establishing the program for about two years, the time it took to research the idea and win support from the university administration.

In February 2006, after a night of bar-hopping, 21-year-old Scot Radel accidentally drowned in the Mississippi River. The St. Cloud State student had a blood alcohol level of 0.21 percent. The legal limit for driving is .08.

Last spring, students voted to put part of their fees toward the bus service, said Wanda Overland, the university's vice president for student life and development.

"We want to provide a safe experience for students," said Overland, noting that the bus also benefits those who work late downtown. "We're not supportive of students getting drunk."

But, as St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis said: "It's a more economical means of getting home if you've been out drinking, especially compared to a ... DWI. We don't want them getting behind the wheel, but the concern is also about them walking home from the downtown area."

A growing trend

The University of Minnesota offers free shuttles on set routes around campus until just after 2 a.m. For the past year, the student government has also provided a free taxi that runs from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays in the surrounding neighborhoods.

At the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus, a program allows students four free cab rides per month after 1 a.m. Winona, where five young people drowned in the Mississippi in a 1995 accident, has a "safe ride" program for students at Winona State and St. Mary's University.

Mankato has a downtown similar to St. Cloud's -- close enough for students to walk home but far enough to raise safety concerns -- and has offered a late-night bus on weekends since October 2004.

It costs $1 and runs one way, from downtown to the area around Minnesota State University Mankato.

The bus, operated by the city, runs from midnight to 3 a.m. Saturday and Sunday mornings. It provided 915 rides in February and carries between 40 and 50 passengers each hour.

The city of Mankato's website is blunt about the purpose of its late bus service: "This service was designed solely to ensure that responsible individuals who feel they may have had too much to drink have a safe way home without driving."

The bus serves the housing area around the university and doesn't go to the dorms or into campus, said Mark Anderson, a Mankato transit supervisor.

"You get people a lot nearer to their home and they're more likely to go home and call it a night," Anderson said.

In the past, Mankato students drinking downtown and walking home would urinate in public, vomit on sidewalks, knock over garbage cans or commit more serious offenses, including sexual assaults and break-ins, said Matt Westermayer, Mankato's director of public safety.

"We found that with the services of the Late Night Express, a lot of that has been reduced because they're able to get that safe, efficient means of transportation back to their residences," Westermayer said. "The community has benefited in many ways because of it."

Too new for research

Jim Rothenberger teaches "Alcohol and College Life," a freshman course at the University of Minnesota. The most successful and safest way for students to get home after drinking has been using a designated driver, he said.

However, most of these late-night bus services are so new no one has collected data or researched what effect they have on students, Rothenberger said, particularly whether students drink more alcohol when they have a safe, inexpensive ride home.

In La Crosse, the family of a student who drowned in the Mississippi after a night of drinking in April 2004 sued the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and the city, claiming that a program providing free rides promoted binge drinking. A judge later dismissed the suit at the family's request.

Late Thursday on the bus, one St. Cloud State student offered his thoughts on how things have changed in his college town.

"Nobody drinks and drives from the bars now," David Biegler, 22, said. "Well, maybe not nobody. But I know I don't."

Staff librarian Roberta Hovde contributed research for this report. Emily Banks is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.

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