Unitrans celebrated its 56th birthday and 100 millionth rider this year
By SYDNEY AMESTOY — campus@theaggie.org
Unitrans has been voted Best ASUCD Unit with 29.6% of the vote. The bus service was founded in 1968 by ASUCD and has been connecting students and the Davis community to both the campus and city for decades. This partnership between Unitrans and the city of Davis came to be in the 1970s, according to Jeffery Flynn, the Unitrans general manager.
This 2023 to 2024 academic year specifically saw numerous milestones for the transportation service as the unit celebrated both its 56th birthday as an organization and recently held a celebration for its 100 millionth rider this past February.
“[Unitrans] projected out when we would be carrying that 100 millionth rider,” Flynn said. “We selected a random, representative bus that would bring in that 100 millionth rider, and we randomly handed everybody on that bus a gift bag of things.”
Flynn went on to say that people all over campus and in the community donated gift cards and goodies to everyone on the bus.
“One of those gift bags had a golden ticket, and the golden ticket holder was entitled to […] more stuff from the community,” Flynn said. “So, they got over about $250 worth of gift cards and other things.”
Unitrans continues to look for student employees to fill in numerous positions across the organizations, including student drivers, according to Flynn.
“We’re still about 20% below service levels from before the pandemic,” Flynn said. “There’s been a lot of crowding on the buses this year, and I know that’s made some people not very happy with our service.”
Flynn described that, in order to help resolve this issue, the unit will need to hire more student drivers to get back to full service.
“We’re still hoping to restore service to pre-pandemic levels,” Flynn said. “[This] will make the service more frequent and more comfortable for everybody.”
Flynn concluded the conversation with the sentiment that students should consider bus driving as a campus job.
“We thank everyone for their patience this year, and we really encourage people to get there to apply to be a driver or get their friends to apply to be drivers,” Flynn said. “It’s one of the highest-paid jobs on campus.”
Written by: Sydney Amestoy — campus@theaggie.org
