As a junior here at RHS, I’d say I’m a veteran in the world of bus riding. From morning routes, to route-changes, I’ve seen it all. I’ve pretty much ridden the bus almost everyday since my freshman ear and the most prominent thing that has stood out to me is the lack of organization and care.

It seems as though the transportation department is always changing something. The trend for the past two years has consisted of routes regularly ladened with alterations. Last year, the issue was a shortage of bus drivers; even so, there seemed to be more than plenty drivers — which was bothersome. However, I overlooked it.

However, this year is different. We have already seen three route changes and it’s barely been a month of school. To top it off, there’s been no explanation as to why.

The transportation department can’t say it’s because of bus overflow — that didn’t become a problem until after the first route change of the year. Likewise, stating a shortage of bus drivers is invalid, because that’s been resolved.

It wouldn’t be irritating if the changes were actually beneficial. On the first and second days of school, my route was perfectly fine and so was everyone else’s.

No bus overflow, no unnecessary stops and no confusion.

However, this new implementation of new routes has thrown a wrench into this temporary reprieve. The majority of people were moved from one route to another, even though their bus passes still state the original route.Why even bother putting the route number and stop location this year if it’ll just change?

Unfortunately, the problems don’t stop there. The bus drivers are problematic themselves. Students never have the same driver, they’re always rotating, or  disappearing from the route completely. With different drivers, consistency is an increasingly difficult thing to manage. I’ve had one driver that drove me to the stops in the shortest and fastest route possible. A different day, I received a different driver who has consistently driven longer ways throughout the whole city to get me to my first stop. These inconsistencies mean different leave, arrival and stop times for the morning and afternoon buses, making transportation unpredictable and unreliable.

Where does this end? When do we finally say enough is enough? The transportation department has  been around for far too long to be having issues like this now.

If this continues, it will give the transportation department an unorganized, unprofessionally bad reputation. This is why we need solid bus routes every year that don’t change throughout the year.