Battling the din and steering the course, drivers carry precious cargo
Classic rock pouring through speakers, belligerence fuming the air, sweaty bodies in nearly every seat: Welcome to the Buff Bus.
One of the many free modes of transportation at CU, the Buff Bus is a friend to all – but most of all to the residents of Williams Village.
“Will Vill is chill,” said freshmen open-option major and Stearns West resident Kaylee Ricciardi. “I don’t really mind riding the busses. The drivers are wicked nice and blast The Fugees all the time. What else could I want?”
Students who make the trek to campus from Williams Village every day are dependent on the gold-and-yellow busses to get them to class on time, and to the hill as soon as the message of a party gets sent to one of their cell phones.
Stuart Hardy, a sophomore political science major, Red Bull drinker and Buff Bus driver with eight months of experience enjoys chauffeuring the residents of Will Vill from place to place.
“On Fridays, driving is kind of like being paid to go to a party sober, which definitely isn’t so bad, and pretty easy compared to other jobs,” he said.
Aside form the occasional drunk student practicing their lap dance technique, the amateur vodka drinker testing his limits or the constant requests to blast Young Jeezy, the drivers tend to stay pretty amused — as long as no one throws up.
Drivers are responsible for all maintenance on their respective routes, so on a Friday or Saturday night shift, they have to be handy with a mop.
“Freshmen are fun sometimes,” Hardy said with a smile. “I just try and be nice. If they have been waiting a while and get anxious, there is not really much I can do.”
Freshman Buff Bus riders, as impatient as they can seem standing at various stops with their arms folded and iPods muffling their ears, are grateful for the kind service and convenience of the free rides.
“It gets me where I need to go, although I wish the timing was more consistent, especially at night,” Kathryn Lehman, a sophomore open-option major in Stearns East said.
Freshman pre-journalism and mass communication major Holly Niedringhaus, who calls the Buff Bus the “the drunk bus,” agrees.
“It would be nice if they ran later,” Niedringhaus said.
Late nights journeying from Williams Village to main campus aboard the Buff Bus can be unpredictable for students.
“There was some guy sitting in the back of the bus Friday smoking cigarettes and acting like it was nothing,” Ricciardi said regarding one of her weekend rides.
The drivers train themselves to ignore the complaining from anxious riders, tune out the belligerence and keep the students standing safely behind the thin yellow line separating the themselves from the rest of the party, or in literal terms, bus.
“I try to avoid altercations with passengers. Sick kids and rude kids are pretty much the worst that it gets”. Hardy said. “It is usually tOo crowded for there to be any fights.”
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Clare Lane at clare.lane@colorado.edu.
