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University Datry Kansan
Thursday, May 14, 1964
Student Transportation Gripes Nothing New
By Linda Ellis
The current controversy over the raising of parking permit fees is just another example of the old bromide about history repeating itself.
Transportation has always been a problem at KU.
The local bus service is relatively new and students fought for years to get it. When it was discontinued in 1957, students complained until it was renewed.
THIS WAS NO new complaint, for even in the days when horse drawn cabs hauled students up the hill the students wanted trolleys.
Two plans to get such transportation were tried and failed. In 1898 the Board of Regents gave its permission for an electric street car company to skirt the campus but this plan did not materialize because of lack of funds.
Plans were made in 1903 for a streetcar line that would go south on Mississippi Street, turn west near the present stadium, then go south again, tunneling under Mount Oread near Marvin Hall. The route would then circle back toward the city.
IT WAS, HOWEVER, realized this route was actually a nonresidential area and the company was planning a real estate development along the line. If the plan had gone through, it would have stopped the University's westward expansion.
Attempts to get streetcar service were finally successful after downtown Lawrence got it. The April 1910 Daily Kansan carried this story:
"The first streetcar of the Lawrence system to scale Mount Oread reached the summit at 2:30 this afternoon. The line is now completed
The route of the streetcar ran north and south between Bailey Hall and Robinson Gymnasium.
to the loop at the gymnasium."
STREETCAR SERVICE continued until it was replaced by busses in the fall of 1933.
As far back as 1923 a car ban was being proposed for KU. In that year the Kansas legislature passed a bill stating that driving of cars by students on the campus was a misdemeanor. The punishment for such an offense was a jail sentence from 10 to 30 days or a fine from $100 to $300 or both.
The law stated that students were not allowed to drive cars at all while enrolled in the University.
At another time in KU history the Student Council had jurisdiction over traffic offenders and passed laws to protect student pedestrians from speeders.
The scope of the traffic problem has widened since 1936 when there were only 200 cars on campus. At this time the traffic regulations stated that the speed limit was 20 miles an hour and cars were not permitted to stop to let persons out on Jayhawk Boulevard.
The policy of pay parking was not introduced at KU until 1957 when an estimated 7.000 cars were registered with the campus police. This resulted in the parking lot in back of the Kansas Union.
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