In an e-mail to various university officials last week, AU Debate Society President Spencer Siegel outlined his club's and other student organizations' frustration with obtaining "reliable and affordable" transportation through AU to off-campus events.
"Current transportation options are hardly feasible and do not service the needs of certain groups on campus," he said in the e-mail, which 13 student groups signed.
Travel restrictions are hindering the Debate Society from doing better at tournaments, according to Siegel.
"That's what's preventing us from becoming a more successful team because we can't take our most competitive debaters to tournaments at the point where we can't afford to do that and there's no reliable or consistent way of getting to those places," he said in a subsequent interview.
Currently, the university provides two options for groups looking to travel, according to American University Transportation Organization (AUTO) Commissioner Zack Schwartz. They can rent a vehicle from Enterprise at a reduced rate of about $75 a day, and drivers have to be 21 instead of the usual 25 years old. to rent it They can also rent a van from AUTO, which is the cheaper option and costs 30 cents a mile, including gas and insurance.
Groups that rent out AUTO vehicles are prohibited from traveling anywhere beyond a 50-mile radius around AU. Siegel said this is a problem since his group is constantly traveling to cities in the Northeast - such as New York and Boston - that are beyond that radius. There are multiple problems with the Enterprise option, he said. The $75-per-day cost is not in the reach of many clubs, most students are younger than 21 years of age and Enterprise vans hold seven people instead of the 11 to 15 passengers AUTO vans can hold.
The university has also encouraged groups to charter a bus if they plan to travel beyond 50 miles of AU - an option that can cost thousands of dollars, Siegel said in the e-mail.
The Debate Society has been getting to their weekly tournaments in the Northeast by either using a group member's personal vehicle, taking public transportation - which is not timely enough - or riding with other teams, which is embarrassing for the team, Siegel said.
When the Debate Society attended the University of Virginia debate tournament this weekend, they could only send three members due to the high cost of the public transportation, he said. If they had access to a vehicle like an AUTO van, they could take 15 competitors for less than the cost of the three train tickets they had to buy, Siegel said in the subsequent interview.
AUTO vans are restricted to the 50-mile radius because of AU's insurance policy. The rule went into effect several years ago, after an AUTO vehicle broke down during a group trip in Boston. AU and its insurance company had to pay thousands of dollars to recover and fix the vehicle, according to Schwartz.
He said he tried to convince AU's Risk Management department, which negotiates the school's insurance policy, to change the 50-mile policy this summer, but the department told him they were not in the position to renegotiate their policy because of the increased insurance cost.
Risk Management and Transportation Director Tony Newman was not available for an interview.
Siegel said ideally he would like to work to expand AUTO's radius but understands AU's inability to negotiate their contract. He said he hopes to work with the Student Government and the Department of Risk Management to help develop an alternative that would allow 18-year-olds to rent vehicles for a reasonable price.
Schwartz said he supports Siegel's efforts to solicit change, but if the university extended the radius, insurance rates to go up and AUTO would need to charge student groups more for renting vans.
"My fear is that if anything else ever did [happen to one of the vehicles], our insurance would drop AU, or would force AU to drop AUTO," he said. "AUTO is by far one of the highest risk management pieces of legislation that we have at AU, because there are students in these large vans and driving several other students in them."
You can reach this staff writer at thallerman@theeagleonline.com.
