THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2009
SAN
009
NEWS
5A
TRANSPORTATION
More people taking city, KU buses
Jenny Terrell/KANSAN
Students board a bus in front of Snow Hall on Tuesday afternoon. The number of bus riders has increased since the Lawrence Transit System converged with the KU on Wheels bus service.
Jenny Terrorl/ANKSM
BY MEGAN HEACOCK
mheacock@kansan.com
The coordination of KU on Wheels and the Lawrence Transit System is finally on track — and with promising results.
The monthly Lawrence Transit Ridership Report showed that the Lawrence bus system, known as the T, increased its ridership 37 percent this August, with 48,313 riders. That is compared with last August, which had 35,349 riders.
Before coordinating with KU on Wheels, there was major concern about the T's survival because of funding issues and lack of use, transit administrator Robert Nugent said. The situation improved when Lawrence residents voted for a 0.2 percent sales tax increase in November to help fund the transit system. KU on Wheels and the T began their partnership in Aug. 2008 when they allowed riders of one system to ride the other system for free. Since the T coordinated its routes with KU on Wheels this summer, ridership has increased
Nugent said the addition of Route 11, which connects downtown, the main campus and retail stores at 31st and Iowa streets, caused the jump in ridership.
"It appears that Route 11 has accommodated the needs of both KU students and city riders," he said.
According to the Lawrence Transit Web site, Route 11 is the first coordinated transit route between KU on Wheels and the T. It began running Aug. 17. Several apartment complexes, including The Exchange, which opened this fall, are on the route.
Derek Meier, transportation coordinator for KU on Wheels, said students benefited greatly from the alliance.
"It has provided students who
live downtown to have service more often and longer than ever before," he said.
Meier said the bus systems have added 150 hours of service. Students will still be able to use the T for free when KU buses aren't running, such as during evenings, Saturdays and school breaks, according to the Lawrence Transit Web site.
Benjamin Wright, Eudora freshman, uses the T on occasion and said the coordination was a great idea. He said 'in his experience, the T was usually on time and efficient. His only complaint was the lack of hand sanitizer on both KU on Wheels and the T.
"They should get some hand sanitizer with a thousand people
getting on and off those buses every day," he said.
The Web site warned that KU buses did not have bike racks, an adjustment that city bus riders would have to make. Meier said KU buses would not be getting bike racks in the future.
"The KU transit system is extremely high volume, high ridership. And that doesn't work well with bike racks because a bus can hold 70 to 80 people, but there's only room for two bikes," he said. "It becomes problematic for passengers to get onto a bus and expect to have a bike storage spot."
System to provide all route maps and schedules in one place. An electronic version of this information can be found at www.lawrenetransit.org.
Interested passengers can get the new "Guide to Ride" booklet, a coordinated effort by KU on Wheels and the Lawrence Transit
Edited by Sarah Kelly
BY THE NUMBERS:
T BUS RIDERSHIP
lawrencetransit.org
February 2009 — 31,451
February 2008 — 29,147
June 2009 — 32,805
June 2008 — 33,757
August 2009 — 48,313
August 2008 — 35,349
LEGAL
Court won't retry death row inmate
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DALLAS — A Texas death row inmate won't be able to argue for a new trial, despite admissions of an affair between his trial judge and the prosecutor, a court announced Wednesday.
The Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals ruled 6-3 that convicted murderer Charles Dean Hood should have raised concerns about the affair between the now-retired
court officials in earlier appeals. The ruling overturned a lower court's recommendation that Hood be able to make his case for a new trial based on the affair.
Hood
"Our argument is that they had this information and should have raised it in the earlier writ," said current prosecutor John Rolater, the chief of Collin County's appellate division. "We consider this a significant success for the state."
Hood's attorneys said in a statement that the affair led to a tainted trial and "obvious and outrageous violations" of Hood's constitutional rights. The ruling will "only add to the perception that justice is skewed in Texas," said Andrea Keilen, of the Texas Defender Service.
The rejection from the state's highest criminal appeals court means a future appeal on the same grounds must go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"No one would want to be prosecuted for a parking violation —
let alone for capital murder — by a district attorney who is sleeping with the judge," another Hood attorney Greg Wiercioch said. "We are outraged by this breakdown in the integrity of the justice system
... Mr. Hood is entitled to a new trial before an impartial judge and a fair prosecutor."
Hood's attorneys have said they could not raise the issue of the affair until last year, because it wasn't yet a known fact.
Hood, 40, a former bouncer at a topless club, was arrested in Indiana for the 1989 fatal shootings of Tracie Lynn Wallace, 26, and her boyfriend, Ronald Williamson, 46. He has maintained his innocence.
Hood was driving Williamson's $70,000 Cadillac at the time of his arrest and his fingerprints were at the murder scene at Williamson's home in Plano, a Dallas suburb. Hood said he had permission to drive the car and his fingerprints were at the house because he had been living there.
Hood won a reprieve last September, a day before his scheduled execution. No new execution date has been scheduled, and he still has at least one other appeal pending regarding whether jury instructions were flawed. A ruling favorable to Hood could result in a new sentencing hearing but not a new trial.
The Austin-based appeals court granted the stay of execution because of the issue of jury instructions. It was unrelated to the once secret romantic relationship between Hood's trial judge, Verla Sue Holland, and Tom O'Connell, the former district attorney in Collin County.
CRIME
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Neighbors protest sex offender
EAST PALO ALTO, Calif.
— After being locked away for 25 years for sex crimes, Donald Robinson moved to a little block of unassuming homes in this city on the San Francisco Peninsula on Aug. 27.
Melvin Harris and his wife Helen Harvey-Harris are interviewed at their home near the residence of sex offender Donald Robinson in East Palo Alto, Calif. Robinson moved in Aug. 27.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The timing couldn't have been worse. It was the day after Phillip Garrido was arrested just 40 miles away on charges that he kidnapped 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard and held her captive for 18 years despite his long criminal record as a sex offender.
CRIME
Police distributed fliers in Robinson's new neighborhood, alerting residents that he was living there. He has been targeted by a protest rally organized by the mayor and daily picketing outside his house. And the state is paying two security guards $800 a day
each to protect him.
Robinson's case underscores just how hard it is for the government to move sex offenders back into society, especially at a time there is widespread outrage over
the garrido case and the missed opportunities to catch him.
It's an issue that communities face in an era when community notification laws in all 50 states tell residents where sex offenders live.
Associated Press
Capt. Mike Rolls said Krauss couldn't explain where he was coming from or why he was naked. It was Krauss' fifth DUI arrest.
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the influence after he was spotted riding his motorcycle naked. The Marion County deputy caught up with J. Dante Krauss early Tuesday at a red light and stopped him on interstate 75.
Naked man gets fifth DUI during motorcycle ride
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