Commission Considers City Dial-a-Bus System
By BOB MARCOTTE
Kansan Staff Reporter
The buses would be equipped with built-in radios, he said, which would allow a dispatcher to direct routing on the basis of time. The buses would not require notice would be required for service, he said, which would be offered between 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. weekdays and Saturdays. The service wouldn't run on holidays. If bus fare would be about 50 cents a ride.
The commission also authorized the city staff to send a letter to the state highway department, requesting that Lawrence be declared an urban area. Such a designation would make the city eligible for a share of about $6.6 million in federal highway funds made available to the state government.
The Lawrence City Commission yesterday heard a proposal for dial-a-bus public transportation in the city and the county. The proposal will benefit Lawrence's public transportation needs.
The system could probably be put into operation, he said, as soon as adjustments are made to the smaller窥士 to allow for a larger size, which would take no more than 45 days, he said.
Duanne Ogle, president and general manager of the Lawrence Bus Co., outlined what could be maintained if the city would be willing to provide up to $100,000 a year to cover the difference between the service cost and the revenue that could be expected.
THE DALI-A-BUS system, he said, would use two seven-passenger limousines, two 15- and six-seater cars.
"IF WE'T TALKING about something on a trial basis, I'm not interested," he told the commission. Ogle said he knew of no dual-a-bus systems now operating that were required to operate on the campus we have to provide the equivalent of $10 for each operating hour of service by the
to provide door-to-door service throughout the city six days a week.
smaller vans and $12 and hour for use of the 35-seat buses, which he said would be used primarily for back-up service during peak hours.
At most, this would cost the city about $100,000 a year, he said. Later he said that the cost to the city would probably be less and that the $100,000 figure would result only if a minimal number of people used the service.
Ogle said the service could be scheduled regularly for people who wanted to use the service every day and for children who needed rides to school.
"ICAN HANDLE all of the business you give me," he said, indicating that he could lease whatever additional equipment might be needed.
The commission didn't take action on the proposal or on a request of the Lawrence PTA that the commission authorize formation of a committee that would study public transportation needs in Lawrence and make recommendations to the city.
Sally MacKenzie, president of the Lawrence area PTA school, said a flexible bus system would suit perfectly the need for transportation among high school students and would help ease the congestion caused when parents take their children to school.
MacKenzie urged the commission to establish a committee that would include representatives of the PTA, businesses, school administrations, the city-county planning commission, KU, Haskell and other interested community groups.
Pence said it should be determined where potential riders are located in the
Commissioner Fred Pence said he was opposed to committing "large chunks of the earth" in his plans.
COMMISSIONER JOHN H. EMICA, however, that she had to attend a committee at this point and that the commissioners 'need to do a little thinking among ourselves and see what they can do.'
84th Year, No. 99
See CITY Back Page
Wednesday, February 27,1974
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Rock Chalk Teams Ready
See Story Page 5
Kansan Staff Photo by DAVE REGIER
By the Associated Press
Gas Price to Go Up Again
Doggone It
Motorists struggling with the end-of-the-month fuel crunch yesterday had more bad news ahead of them—price hikes within the next few days.
Contradicting the signs that have been hung in Wescow hall as well as other navy buildings, this dog waited patiently in the hall until a few hours before the ceremony.
Mandatory gasoline rationing took effect in New York and Delaware, and Rhode Island announced that a voluntary odd-even distribution system would begin Friday. Coal mines in Virginia and West Virginia because workers could not get gas to commute.
The National Petroleum Council predicted that the nation would have to rethink its energy policy.
rationing unless federal allocation measures proved more effective.
The mandatory rationing that went into effect in New York seemed to help cut the lines that had persisted during a voluntary sales distribution program introduced Peb.
Independent service stations—those not directly owned by the major oil company, Energy Office last weekend to raise prices by two cents a gallon. Then, on Monday, the government okayed another one-centa- tional price change. The price change will go into effect March 1.
DEPARTMENT ECONOMIST said food prices would keep rising at least through mid-year but could level off if farmers produced more crisps and livestock.
UDSA says that during 1974 grocery store prices might go up as much as 16 per cent from last year if record harvests do not raise the year and consumer demand continues strong.
Standard Oil Co. of California officials are planning a meeting tonight to decide what to do about prices. A spokesman would say the price increase is planned before March 1.
—President Nixon signed a proclamation removing all restrictions on imports of beef into the United States this year to try to drive retail prices down.
Higher Farm Prices Raise Retail Food Costs
In related developments;
WASHINGTON (AP) - Higher farm prices for major food items, including beef, pushed the annual retail cost of a grocery market basket to a record $1,680 in January, the Department of Agriculture said yesterday.
The company already has raised its price to dealers by five cents a gallon since Dec. 1.
Officials said the January base was up an annual rate of $30, or 1.8 per cent, from December. The data had sourced to $1,633 million months before beginning, its current rise.
-Federal Reserve Board chairman Arbur F. Burns told Congress inflation
The market basket, which includes only U.S. farm-produced food, is theoretically enough for a household of 3.2 persons for an entire year.
Retail pork prices, which were $1.16 a pound, were up less than one cent from
Exxon, Gulf and Shell Oil said they had made no decisions about new price for
The figures were compiled by USDA technicians at the request of newsmen.
The report showed that the average retail cost of beef in January was $1.43 a pound on all-cut basis. That was an increase of 6.4 from the beef average of $1.34 in December.
The January food basket cost consumers $306 on an annual basis than it did in January of 1973. Higher farm prices accounted for more than half of the gain.
THE FIGURES SHOWED, however, that middleman spreads were up 137, or 17 per cent.
couldn't be halted this year. He said the government might have to act to push the economy toward recovery but urged against a tax increase.
Middlemen, whose margins for processing and selling food had been expanding for months, had a reduced share in January of $111, a drop of $17 or 1.8 per cent from
According to department calculations, farmers received $769 in January as their share of the retail basket cost, up $47, or 6.6 per cent, from the annual rate in December. Farmers got 29.1 per cent, or $173, more than in January of 1973.
A spokesman at Mobil said a decision probably wouldn't be made until late Feb.
THE AMERICAN BAKERS Association held a 40-minute "save our bread" rally on Capitol Hill and then took its campaign to Washington, where they were lobbying to assure an adequate domestic wheat supply. The National Wheat Growth Association co-sponsored that the albeit small effort.
The Oil & Gas Journal, reporting on a 55-city survey, said the average retail price of gasoline on Feb 12, 1974, was 45.76 cents a month; on Mar 15, 1973, the average price was 36.95.
President Nixon said in his news conference Monday night that the crisis stage of the energy crisis was over. He predicted that there was a better-than-even chance the nation could avoid gasoline rationing that gasoline lines would get shorter by spring.
Docking Won't Run Party Sources Say
TOPEKA (AP) - Gov. Robert Docking has informed close friends, political associates and staff members that he won't be a candidate for political office this year, the Associated Press has learned.
Party sources said Docking's decision was "irreversible."
Coal Mine Shutdown Due to Gas Shortage
They have been told that Docking will make an announcement of his decision to leave candidate politics at the end of his current two-year term at the Democrats'
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Mines produced 100,000 tons of coal a day were closed yesterday as miners in West Virginia and Missouri didn't get enough gasoline to get to work.
The West Virginia Coal Association said it believed about 9,000 men were out of work in mines closed in southern West Virginia would produce about 75,000 tons on an average day. Most of these mines produce metallurgical coal, a high-grade fuel used in the mine.
In Virginia, the president of the United Mine Workers district said about 40 per cent of the miners' cases were treated.
cars didn't have enough gasoline to take them to work.
One mine worker official stressed that the shutdown of the area mines was not a strike.
Rep. Carl D. Perkins, D.Ky., warned in Washington that eastern Kentucky coal miners would strike if no more gasoline was fed into the area.
A spokesman for Bethel Elkhorn Coal Corp. said four of its mines in eastern Kentucky might have to close today because there was a station in Letcher County that had any gas.
Enrollment Sets Spring Record
A spring semester record of 17,955 students enrolled at the Lawrence campus of the University of Kansas, according to official figures released yesterday by the Kansas Board of Regents.
Enrollment at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., is 1,790. That makes total enrollment for the University of Kansas 45,826.
Miners said gasoline had been short in the area for the past few weeks, but the situation had grown in the final days of this month.
Lawrence campus full-time-equivalent student enrolment, on which state appropriations are based, is 17,730, an increase over last spring.
This is a decrease of 728 from last fall's enrollment when 18,683 were enrolled. However, spring semester enrollment is lower than the fall's enrollment.
Washington Day dinner here Saturday night.
Gasoline is a necessity in the sparsely populated mountains because miners living in scattered towns may have to drive 50 to 60 miles each day to get to and from work.
Party officials want Atty. Gen. Vern Miller to announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor at the same time Docking reveals he is bowing
However, sources indicated that Miller might not be ready to make such an announcement. But there appears little doubt that the source that he is a candidate for governor.
The party hierarchy also wants Rep. Bill Roy, D-Kan., to announce Saturday night that he will seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator, which some had expected Docking to seek. The seat of incumbent Bob Dole is up for re-election this year.
However, Roy is expected to reveal only that he was reconsidering his announcement made here in December that he would seek re-election to the U.S. House. Roy said at that time he would reassess his decision regarding against running for the Senate.
WIBW radio and television here reported last night that speculation was ripe among Kansas legislators that Docking had decided to retire from candidate politics. WIBW cited what it called "feverish" activity on the part of Roy's people as an indication that the 2nd District congressman might be gearing up to run against Dole.
WIBW statehouse reporter Roger N. Wilson said Roy was believed to have told the authorities that he was dead.
See DOCKING Back Page
WASHINGTON (AP)—An oil industry advisory group warned yesterday that petroleum consumption must be cut even more sharply this spring than it was this winter, or the nation may have to face gasoline rationing.
Gas Use Must Decline Advisory Group Warns
The warning from the National Petroleum Council (NPC) came after President Nixon told a news conference the nation had been running a vaccine rationing probably could be avoided.
The NPC said petroleum consumption in
Women's Sports Hurting Programs Short of Money. Facilities
Editors note: This is the first of a three-part series on Women's intercollegiate
By BETH RETONDE Kansan Staff Reporter
The biggest problems facing women's intercollegiate athletics at the University of Kansas are money and space, Sharon Drydale, assistant professor of physical education and coordinator of women's athletics here, said yesterday.
Phase two of Robinson Gymnasium construction, which should begin if the Kansas Board of Regents and the state legislature approve expansion plans, should help alleviate the space problem, Drysdale said.
The money problem is another matter. The women's athletic program is run by the Women's Intercollegiate Sports Club and is financed in part by the Student Senate. For this academic year, the senate appropriated $9,300 for the program.
The program is run with the cooperation
of the physical education department. Although the department doesn't directly fund the program, Drysdale said, it gives substantial indirect aid to the program.
THE PROGRAM uses the department's facilities and secretaries and the teachers who work for the department are released from duty so they can spend some time coaching.
Drysdale said that this semester 50 physical education courses were closed so teachers could spend more time coaching the women's teams.
Drysdale said the program was currently functioning within its budget by asking the women involved in the sports to assume some of the costs of their participation.
The additional help of state funding for the program is a possibility for next year. The program will receive $8,375 from the state to help finance the program. Although the request was deleted
One woman's father has helped to finance the team she plays on.
in the governor's budget message, the House Ways and Means committee added it to the legislative appropriations bill for the unsupported universities and colleges.
Drysdale said that if the legislature approves the $8,575 for the program, the
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STATE AND SCHOOL officials had expressed the opinion that the state had a moral and legal obligation to provide equitable funding to women's athletics.
State Rep. Albert Campbell, D-Laredo, has said that he would rather supply funds to the program now than to wait for someone to take legal action and perhaps win a court decision that would force the legislature to act.
One state representative, Wendell Lady, R-Overland Park, has said that there was no defense for putting state money into men's athletics and not for women. The state gives $360,585 to men's athletics at the six state schools.
the second quarter of the year must be reduced 400,000 barrels a day more than the
Even if the Arab oil embargo, which cut off shipments to the United States last year, is lifted, normality in the energy supply system can't be achieved for some time. NPC said.
The National Petroleum Council is a semi-official group composed primarily of oil company executives, but with official participation by government officials and a mandate to advise the government on petroleum policy.
In other related developments:
—Energy chief William E. Simon defended administration oil policies from senators who said they and the public didn't believe Nixon's statement that the energy crisis had passed. Simon told the senators that all Nixon meant to say was that he was distressed by the long lines at gasoline stations and that he should locate more gasoline to relieve those lines.
Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, D-Montana, told newsmen that "the shortage remains and so does the crisis" and was prepared for immediate gasoline rationing.
- Mines producing 100,000 tons of coal a day were shut down in West Virginia and Virginia as miners complained that they couldn't get enough汽油 to get to work.
- Rhode Island and California became the latest states to announce plans for a gasoline tax on motorists to buy gasoline on alternate days. The system has become mandatory in New York.
"The American Automobile Association said Atlantic Coast states and parts of the country are in need of help by the gasoline shortage. The association said its weekly check found a downward trend in gasoline availability, with stations continuing to operate for shorter hours.