A combination of low stipends, living far off campus, parking pass costs, student fees and inadequate bus coverage lead to a difficult transportation situation for many graduate student workers.

Due to low salaries, graduate student workers are often forced to live on the outskirts of campus, where the rent is cheaper, according to Lexie Malico, a Ph.D. student in chemistry and vice president of student governance relations for the Graduate Student Association.

“I think the biggest problem with NC State’s transportation, when it comes to accessibility for grad students, is that grad students are priced out of not campus housing, but close-to-campus housing,” Malico said. “It’s very expensive, so you’re not living on a bus line, so it’s not easily accessible. And then with the park-and-rides, you still have the same problem of, ‘Ok, what if I have to work after the park-and-ride stops?’”

Dmitry Zaritskiy, a Ph.D. student in animal science, agreed that while it is cheaper to live south of campus, transportation to campus is very difficult.

“You’re really stranded here,” Zaritskiy said. “If you live anywhere south of Western Boulevard, you’re really challenged. This is where the majority of students live, because it’s a very affordable area.” 

As a result of living far off campus, some students are forced either to walk long distances or buy a car, which can be difficult to afford. Nandini Negi, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering, shares a car with her roommate to deal with the high cost.

“On a grad salary, it becomes sort of difficult to afford a car; all the other expenses, insurance and of course the parking fees,” Negi said. “We [use] the car, we paid for it jointly and we pay for the insurance jointly, and both of us get to drive it. The issues that come up with the car, specifically the parking fees, we split it in half.”

Purchasing a parking pass while offering significant convenience can still be financially burdensome on a graduate worker stipend, Negi said.

“Even $200 a semester becomes an issue,” Negi said. “The problem is the way they keep hiking the prices for both the graduate student fees and these other parking [passes], that’s problematic because our salaries are not being increased. For most of my colleagues, they have in fact decreased since the time they first joined.”

No bus routes directly service the area that Negi lives.

“I work on Centennial Campus, but I live near the McKimmon Center,” Negi said. “There’s no bus directly from there. You have to walk 10 or 15 minutes to the nearest bus, then you take a bus that goes all around Avent Ferry; it takes 20 minutes or something.”

Zaritskiy is required to go to the Lake Wheeler Road Facility off campus for classes, which is not serviced by buses. 

“Some classes do provide transportation, which is good, but if it’s something that I need, let’s say I forgot something or I need to be there at 7 a.m., there’s no way I can get there,” Zaritskiy said. “No one’s going to cover my Uber or taxi. It gets challenging because it’s an extra load for others. I have to spend more time on searching for a person willing to go there or who is going there, willing to make a loop.” 

Even if students are able to easily access the bus, it may not always be a viable option. Malico said that because she is required to transfer hazardous chemicals between the main and veterinary campuses, she is forced to use a car.

“Obviously, bringing biological samples onto public transportation is not a great idea, for a lot of reasons,” Malico said. “We work with antibiotic resistant bacteria; that’s not something that’s particularly good to bring onto a publicly used system. We do have to drive it, essentially.”

According to Byron Bryant, transit manager at NCSU Transportation, there aren’t many restrictions for what can be brought onto Wolfline buses, but hazardous chemicals certainly aren’t allowed.

“There are no hazardous materials that should be coming on buses,” Bryant said. “Alcohol is not allowed on the buses. Outside of that, there wouldn’t be any restrictions; obviously no illegal drugs or weapons or anything of that sort.” 

Some graduate students work long hours, Malico said, which buses don’t always accommodate.

“Obviously, buses stop running at a certain time; I think it’s 2 a.m. that they stop running,” Malico said. “People in this lab are here until 2 a.m. There are people who work odd hours and have no choice in that matter, and what, they’re going to be stuck on campus until 6 a.m. or 7 a.m., whenever the buses start again, because they can’t access another space or they can’t get home? That’s insane to me.”

Bryant said buses run until 2 a.m. Night service starts at 10 p.m. on weekdays and 6 p.m. on weekends, which has a much lower ridership and fleet size. 

“At peak, we will run 38 buses during the day,” Bryant said. “At peak at night, it’s only four buses. Even though it’s less frequent than our day service, it’s still kind of on par with what you’d expect from a traditional transit service.”

Zaritskiy said that even if graduate students have cars, most he has talked to have cars with a very high mileage, meaning they need to be serviced often.

“This is when your car’s about to end, and most of them become money pits,” Zaritskiy said. “You can’t really fix them; they’re broken in too many areas. We just struggle, and the funniest thing to me [is] … we’re one step away from jobs that pay 70 or 60 thousand dollars. There’s no indexation of the salaries, and that’s just not right.”

Ultimately, Malico said, a lot of problems that graduate students face can be boiled down to a lack of income.

“Many of the issues we face would be alleviated if we made more money,” Malico said. “Student fees wouldn’t be burdensome if we had more disposable income. Parking wouldn’t be as big of an issue if we had disposable income.”