Students worry about contracting flu on crowded buses

Despite more than 600 students with flu-like symptoms at this unversity and an ongoing national panic over swine flu, the Department of Transportation Services isn't putting in extra efforts to prevent the spread of germs.

Although many student riders worry about getting sick because of overcrowding and a lack of sanitation on DOTS Shuttle-UM buses, the buses are still only washed internally and externally once a day. The buses are not decontaminated at all, and hand sanitizer is not available to riders.

"As soon as one person sits down, the seats are unsanitary again," DOTS Director David Allen said. "If it got to the point that we felt like we should sanitize the buses after each run, we would."

Students have been advised by the University Health Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stay at home and avoid contact with others if they are experiencing flu-like symptoms. However, DOTS has not banned sick students from riding on the buses, Allen said, because many may not have another way to get to class.

"If we don't run the buses, a very large population, healthy or sick, doesn't have a way to get to school," Allen said. 

In the event that the university closes, bus services will also stop. At any other time, the buses will continue on their regularly scheduled routes.

Some students, like freshman business major Amnah Sultan, who rides the Blue bus to the University Club Apartments, worry about the number of germs on high-contact areas.

"When the buses are overcrowded and I have to stand and hold onto the poles, I feel uneasy because I know other people have touched them," Sultan said.

Overcrowding on buses has been a long-standing problem for DOTS. So far, it has attempted to address the issue by adding additional runs to several stops, including the University Town Center Route and the Silver Spring Metro Route.

While this does help decrease the number of students on individual buses, making them less congested and germ-infested, students still find that riding the buses puts them at risk for getting sick. 

"I ride the 113 to the Towers, and it's always crowded," freshman neurobiology major Alex Markowitz said. "I'm breathing everyone else's air; if they're sick, everyone is sick."

Many students felt that the buses should have been sanitized all along, not just in lieu of the H1N1 scare.

"I want them sanitized to prevent everyday transmission of germs," junior molecular biology major Meti Gebregiorgis said. "Everyone freaks out when anyone sneezes or coughs. It would make me feel more safe if they were sanitized."

redding@umdbk.com