...But what about Push Practice?

[Mackin]

Hey Everyone,

On Monday, I attended the debates for the positions of Student Body President and Vice President. Didn't hear anything about buggy specifically, but I did hear something of interest. One of the candidates wants to expand Transportation services, what's that mean? ESCORTS!!!!!

We all hate them, they get in the way and prolong push practice, especially now late in the season when both large and smaller orgs are out and rolling. Push practice is important, so we should do what we can as a community to keep it running smoothly.

The other candidate is quite supportive of buggy as his campaign has a large focus on health and athletics. Also he's a pusher. His name is Turi Alcoser and his running mate is Kelsey Briggs.

Anyways, just thought I'd let you all know that is going on. Elections are April 2-5 at <https://stugov.andrew.cmu.edu/elections/> and I'll be voting for Turi and Kelsey. Tell your orgs, especially because we're no longer allowed to yell at push practice and our damn walkie talkies don't like the cold.

Mackin

[DeVos]

Wait, no yelling at push practice? What's the point then?

But seriously, were you getting noise complaints or is this some new rule in order to get Pittsburgh to sign off on the permits?

[tbach0729]

Someone made a noise complaint.

It was almost certainly from that building behind Skibo, which I'm fairly certain is lived in only by people associated with the school, which means they know exactly what was going on - students doing something productive, not a party - and made a complaint.

From what I was told (I do not know this except second-hand) they also knew enough about how to get Buggy in hot water to call Pittsburgh police instead of CMU police.

Anyway, all that is second hand, but its what I've been told about why I'm no loner allowed to yell escort and instead have to rely on half-functional radios when its cold.

[bjc]

I'd just like to point out that the candidates (Jake and Sangita) Mackin is talking about didn't say anything per se about expanding the escort services, if anything it was about adding/subtracting stops on the escorts that are already running.

Also, Jake is very supportive of Buggy as well - he's a mechanic and has been our raceday flagger in the past.

[JakeF]

I am glad that you brought up this question as there is not enough clarification in my platform. From my work that I have already done with transportation, here are my thoughts on how shuttle and escort may be expanded and how it will impact buggy.

Shuttle:
If the PAT cuts go into effect there will need to be more CMU means of transportation and Pittsburgh in order to replace amount of service lost from PAT. In addition, if there are more routes needed, shuttle is lacking in comparison to escort as it does not currently go to several main housing locations for CMU students.

Escort:
The major addition that I would like to add (will be difficult do to liability and implementation reasons) are pick ups from off campus to campus. This would not ideally require adding more routes to implement. If a new bus was added, it would be to keep the time intervals the same that they are now.

Both:
Evaluate the services needed from the students perspective to try and create the most efficient route structure. Ideally this would increase the mount of service provided while keeping the same number of routes.

Buggy:
Hopefully there would be no impact to how buggy is operating now. I have been a mechanic and have been a part of midnight push practice and understand how annoying it can be. Something that may be interesting for myself to look into is to move the escort stop up the hill so that only hills 1 and 2 will be interrupted instead of all 5.

I encourage you all to read my platform as well as my opponents and make an informed decision on who you believe will be able to serve CMU and have the ability to address and impact concerns such as the one just brought up. If any of you have questions about my platform and how it will impact various aspects of your time at CMU, I encourage you to email me in the appropriate forum at sbpandsbvp@buildingabettercmu.com so that I can eliminate confusion surrounding assumptions that might be made.

-Jake

http://www.buildingabettercmu.com/
http://www.engineeringchangecmu.org/

**voting takes place April 2nd-5th. Make your voice heard as there is a referendum about the CRP.

[jixson]

Honestly I feel like all the parked cars cause more problems during push practice than escort does.

a) escort only shows up three times and usually in a group. Easier to plan around than a dozen cars trying to get out every 5 minutes.
b) some argue that cars only affect one or two hills, but think about how much time is wasted by the orgs on the unaffected hill yelling back and forth about what's going on and whether or not they can roll. Every car effectively shuts down the entire back hills.
c) It is NECESSARY for an org to be responsible about barricading for cars, but you can see escort coming no problem. One failure in proper barricading could result in a car and buggy on the same hill at the same time. And with orgs finishing at different times, buggies coming up, organizing pushers, it can easily, but no excusable, happen.
d) kinda reiterates (c), cars are sneaky, escorts aren't.

And I swear to God, contrary to popular belief, I DID NOT slash that Asian lady's tire last night, she already knew it was flat

Oh and I almost forgot to mention the greatest evil of push practice, those fucking FMS golf carts that will drive on the sidewalk AND the road whenever they fucking please. Much more dangerous than escort

[Zatchmo]

The parked cars are awful, but it seems harder to come up with a solution for that. We can't expect people not to leave for 3 or 4 hours, and it's enough parking that we could never get it closed down regularly in the evenings. At least people have been surprisingly cooperative about waiting to leave for a convenient break and not insisting on parking on the backhills this year. The shuttles, on the other hand, can be pretty easily solved by moving a single stop for the few weeks. Since we can't hold the shuttles for a break, they are usually more disruptive. I would love to see it if they would be willing to not drive down the backhills during push practice in the future.

Do cars pose more of a safety risk? They can sneak by, yes, or barrel through like the drunk did last year. Then again, the shuttle drivers seem to floor it as soon as the barricade open like they get paid for how much gas they consume.

[TommyK]

Is sweepstakes timing push practice this year? Hill 1s at least?

Mackin, if you're going to invite the politicians to pander to the buggy crowd at least get them make promises for something better than "we won't make push practice suck even more than it does". Jake claims to have "concrete plan", why can't that be literal concrete and involve pouring it in giant slabs on the back hills.

[jixson]

Do cars pose more of a safety risk? They can sneak by, yes, or barrel through like the drunk did last year. Then again, the shuttle drivers seem to floor it as soon as the barricade open like they get paid for how much gas they consume.

Standing on top of Hill 4 last night, I seemed to notice all the buggies hugging the right side of the road because of, so I hear, a large pot hole in the middle (let's ignore the fact that potholes suck for a moment and just accept the fact that it's there, it helps me make a point). So now we got buggies being pushed up Hill 4 about a foot and a half away from parked cars. Perhaps its cold outside, the windscreen fogs up, they get an uneven push and hit a crack, over correct, shoot to the right and get the buggy lodged under a car. Then we gotta call Pittsburgh Fire Department, out come the jaws of life and next thing you know we have ANOTHER buggy in pieces on our shelf.

Now with escorts, as soon as one appears, all you can hear on the back hills is people shouting "ESCORT". All the orgs get their buggies off the road onto the sidewalks, barricades open. Who cares if they floor it? I encourage them to. We all got fair warning, there shouldn't be any buggies on the road, let them zoom by and get off the hill. Any safety hazard produced when escort shows up is directly tired to negligence by the org.

So yes, escorts are annoying as hell, making one stop would necessarily make them less annoying, but the cars pose a much greater safety risk.

[Zatchmo]

So yes, escorts are annoying as hell, making one stop would necessarily make them less annoying, but the cars pose a much greater safety risk.

Problem is still that one problem can be solved and I don't see a solution to the other. Barring filling in potholes, I suppose. If any politicians want to make some quality false promises, I would go with that one.