After a year of operation, WUSA announced that its pilot bus service to UW’s Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business will become a permanent service starting this fall. The service provides students with a much-needed affordable and reliable transportation option. UW will be taking over the service, ensuring continued access for students who had long struggled with costly and limited transportation alternatives.

“Many of our Stratford campus students have classes on both [the UW main and Stratford] campuses, meaning that they often prefer to live in Waterloo and commute in,” said WUSA president Nick Pfeifle. “There are long-term plans to expand things like GO [transit service] to the area, but the campus in Stratford needed support now. Building off of the Fed Bus model, something WUSA has been proudly running for years, we added Stratford as a stop, and made sure our GBDA and Stratford campus students had the priority.”

Feedback from students so far has also been positive. “Honestly, we’re just glad because in previous years, they grossly underestimated how many of us chose to stay in Waterloo,” says Mai Nguyen, a third-year GBDA student. “I’m happy we finally got buses because that’s the only way upper-year students can really go [to Stratford].”

While the WUSA service isn’t the only transportation option to get to Stratford, other alternatives are often more expensive. “There is a very expensive daily bus from Waterloo to Stratford run by the Perth Transit people — they’re around 10 buckaroos,” Pfeifle said. 

Pricing for WUSA’s service is $2.75 per trip or roughly $185 for the entire semester. However, prices can be cheaper for early bird tickets. “We’re hoping it’s already improving their wallets already,” Pfeifle said. 

Students can expect a full handover to UW in the fall 2024 term. “Originally the WUSA pilot was intended to only run [for] one term, and we kept running it out of demand and for the fact that it takes a while for others to takeover and we didn’t want to see a gap in service,” Pfeifle said. “It’s what feels most important to us at WUSA.”

Pfeifle encourages GBDA students to go to their student society if they have any concerns or general complaints as they “are the biggest stakeholder on the project and have the channels to speak to pain points.” WUSA remains dedicated to providing continued support for their needs and is excited to see the service become a constant fixture.