Which campuses are so big that most students use busses to get around them?

[Anonymous]

You take buses at UVA to get to faraway classes. Obviously not if all of your classes are Cabell-adjacent.

[Anonymous]

Utah is spread out and hilly and it snows but DS hasn’t mentioned taking the bus very much. Salt Lake also has light rail that’s free with the U ID, which is pretty cool.

[Anonymous]

My kid is at Penn State. Large bus system, but DC has never used it. Walks everywhere and has classes all over the place. Same with all DC’s friends. They live on campus, so that might make a difference. The joke is that it’s hard to gain the freshman 15 at Penn State!

[Anonymous]

If you choose housing that's close to the building(s) where your major is headquartered you can usually avoid a lot of walking/bus rides even on very large campuses.

[Anonymous]

The bus is an integral part of Duke. East campus is around 1.5 mi from West campus. Plenty of people walk, bike, scooter, and occasionally drive between the campuses, but 90% of people take the bus. This is especially true for first years because they all live on East. Once actually on East/West, you walk evrywhere because they are both relatively compact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The really big state universities feel like little cities. Ohio State, Penn State, etc.

Once you get to around 30,000, you start seeing campuses that are really large by necessity.

Penn State is very walkable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is at Penn State. Large bus system, but DC has never used it. Walks everywhere and has classes all over the place. Same with all DC’s friends. They live on campus, so that might make a difference. The joke is that it’s hard to gain the freshman 15 at Penn State!

Part of that may be to the *quality* of the dining hall food. Of course, there's always the creamery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I took buses pretty regularly at UVA 30 years ago.

Same at Delaware. If you wanted to get to North or South campus, it was at least a 20 minute walk from the mall.

[Anonymous]

JMU has busses too, to/from East campus. Very easy to use, but could also walk if you want (20 min maybe, depending where you are going)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bus is an integral part of Duke. East campus is around 1.5 mi from West campus. Plenty of people walk, bike, scooter, and occasionally drive between the campuses, but 90% of people take the bus. This is especially true for first years because they all live on East. Once actually on East/West, you walk evrywhere because they are both relatively compact.

As a Duke alum, agreed. The campuses are too far apart to walk regularly. All 4 of my years there I took the bus all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, if this is important to you, you might want to ask which students tend to use buses. At my school, for example, the hard science students tended to use the shuttles more frequently because of the locations of the labs and other science facilities in relation to the central area where most of the dorms are located. In contrast, other students might use them rarely, or only late at night.

+1 @UMass

[Anonymous]

Wisconsin has city buses, but they are mostly use for people going through campus. There aren't really students riding them to classes if they live on or near campus. Of course grad students, med students etc usually live further away, so that is the main constituency.

I understand at Michigan, they are mostly used to shuttle students between the main campus and north campus where there are some freshman dorms and the engineering school.

[Anonymous]

It may not be to get around campus but to get from off campus housing to the campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is at Penn State. Large bus system, but DC has never used it. Walks everywhere and has classes all over the place. Same with all DC’s friends. They live on campus, so that might make a difference. The joke is that it’s hard to gain the freshman 15 at Penn State!

Part of that may be to the *quality* of the dining hall food. Of course, there's always the creamery.

My kid is in Pollock and absolutely loves the food, but I’m told it’s the best dining hall on campus - all the athletes use it. Maybe the other dining halls aren’t as good.

[Anonymous]

Rutgers.
Penn State
I saw buses at Ohio but the campus felt walkable.
Pretty sure Pitt had buses but we walked.