**Billingsley-Kooi**

Budget issues within the Columbia Transit system have led Missouri Students Association presidential candidates Xavier Billingsley and Helena Kooi to rethink MU’s transportation system as a part of their platform.

“I want to look into MU having our own transportation system,” Billingsley said. “We own our own campus facilities. We own our own campus dining services. It wouldn’t hurt to look into us owning our own transit system.”

In their campaign platform, Billingsley and Kooi also addressed student issues about parking on campus.

“I really want to work with (Director of Parking and Transportation Services) Jim Joy to see how we can make parking more efficient on campus,” Billingsley said. “We want to see what we can do to make students happier on our campus.”

Students can either park in metered parking spots on campus, or buy a parking pass from Parking and Transportation Services.

“They’re doing a good job right now, but I also want to make sure we look into what we need to do to make it more efficient,” Billingsley said. “Because right now we’re really stretched. At the same time, I think it’s a good idea to see how we can make the student life here better, especially with parking.”

**Bruer-Cartee**

“We’ve been to some city council meetings involving transportation,” Missouri Students Association presidential candidate Everett Bruer said. “The impression that we got from it is it’s a very fluid situation right now.”

The mayor of Columbia has proposed an increase of the $80 transportation fee for students, MSA President Eric Woods said. This fee would apply to all students, and would cover bus fare for a full school year.

“I don’t know if I would support this (fee) right now because of how quickly things could change,” Bruer said.

Bruer said he thinks there needs to be more talks with the city about the issue.

“This money has to come from somewhere,” he said. “The best possible scenario that I would like to see get done would be to make sure that students are very involved in the process all the way through, from the very beginning to the very end.”

Bruer said the fee would ultimately have to work for students.

“I’m not vehemently opposed to the student fee, although I think $80 is too high,” he said. “However, it’s important to understand students rely on those buses to get to and from school, to their classes.”

Bruer said MSA should be as involved with the city of Columbia as possible.

“Going forward, I think we need to make our presence more known as students,” he said.

**Loeffler-Damico**

Issues with transportation on and off campus have become a main part of Greg Loeffler and Lauren Damico’s campaign in this MSA election.

“It’s not a reasonable increase,” Damico said about the $80 increase of the student fee.

The Columbia Transit system’s ridership is 74 percent students, according to City Council. Loeffler said he intends on making sure that they focus on the best interests of students.

“Does the fee need to be raised? Probably. But does it need to be raised by $80? Absolutely not,” Loeffler said. “We need to find ways to run Columbia Transit more efficiently without having to raise fees by that much.”

Beyond buses, parking is an additional transportation issue, because the parking system is complicated and tough for students to understand. Loeffler said he wants to increase communication between Parking and Transportation and students to service students better.

Bikes have also increased on campus, which has led to issues with the lack of bike parking, Loeffler said.

“As we continue to use bikes more and more, we need to make sure that those people are accommodated,” he said. “We want to make sure there (are) adequate places for students to park their bikes so we can free up some parking spaces and some spaces on Columbia Transit.”

Damico said she questions why we even have so many cars on campus anyway.

“What happened to carpooling?” she said. “We want to revitalize the mentality of ‘everyone needs to drive to campus.’”