North Dakota State University and Community Transit Research Project

North Dakota State University (NDSU) is considered a small urban university with growing transit needs. NDSU has an enrollment of over 11,000 students and just over 2,000 full-time faculty and staff employees. Most of the individuals live in the Fargo-Moorhead area. The university is anticipating continued growth. To address present and future growth, NDSU President Joseph Chapman asked SURTC to conduct a campus transit research study.

The university transit study is designed to enhance campus mobility. The campus already has a Circulator serving a designated route. The study will examine the Circulator route to ascertain if it is meeting students' mobility needs. Modifications to the route may be recommended as a result of the study. The study will also focus on the campus interface with the city's transit system, Metropolitan Area Transit (MAT) in order to efficiently move students, faculty and staff to and from campus. NDSU is expanding its campus to include downtown Fargo, by the acquisition of a building that will be open in 2004, to serve architecture, landscape architecture and visual arts programs. It will be important to have transportation services to this location. The study will also consider how to better serve the transit needs for the Tri-College system. The Tri-College system allows students to take courses between three different campuses in the Fargo-Moorhead area including: Concordia College, Minnesota State University - Moorhead, and NDSU.

Most university campus' have parking problems and NDSU is no exception. Parking on NDSU is an obstacle for many students due to the high demand and limited supply of spaces.

The study is in progress. Results have been tabulated for two survey that were sent out fall 2002. The surveys were administered to identify the students, and faculty and staff transit needs. Initial reports have been developed. If you would like to see a draft copy, please contact the SURTC office.

The goal of the study is to better understand campus transit needs. It is hoped that responding to these needs will increase transit ridership. The findings from this research project will be useful to NDSU and other universities investigating the implementation of transit services to serve their campuses. For additional information please contact Gary Hegland at (gary.hegland@ndsu.edu) or Jill Hough at (jill.hough@ndsu.edu).