Most of the patience and willpower UTSC students need to learn is being used up by their morning commute.

Transportation is becoming a huge issue at U of T’s Scarborough campus, with sardine-can-like TTC bus conditions, the uncertain future of Scarborough’s Rapid Transit Line (SRT), and concerns over inadequate parking.

“We’re all well aware of how crowded the buses on campus are,” said SCSU VP External Rob Wulkan. “What used to be 20 minutes…turns into 40 minutes.”

The three TTC and one GO bus routes that stop in front of UTSC’s Student Centre are already overcrowded and frequently delayed-a problem heightened by the addition of new riders from Centennial College’s newly built HP Science and Technology Centre across the street.

“We’ve basically doubled the amount of students and kept the transit the same,” said Wulkan. “Which really doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Unsatisfied with the response from the TTC, Wulkan is planning to circulate a petition signed by both UTSC and Centennial College students.

“I get worried when all I hear is ‘Something should be done by January, but if not, call me back,'” Wulkan said.

U of T administration’s committee that focuses on transit has been slow in the past, but is starting up again, according to Wulkan. He will sit on the committee, headed by an officer from UTSC’s Office of Student Affairs and Services.

The future of the SRT, Scarborough’s mini-subway system, is also on his mind. Wulkan was among other attendees at a November 10 city-hosted public meeting to discuss issues brought up by the Scarborough RT Strategic Planning Study, which heard the aging SRT needs to be replaced by 2015. The system handles 42,000 passengers daily-an “insufficient capacity” according to the study, which is not yet complete.

Among the ideas considered at the meeting was an extension of the current SRT system that veers north, away from UTSC, replacing the current SRT vehicles with larger ones that would require a modification of the rails, as well as a streetcar-like LRT and replacement subway lines.

York University is hoping for a subway extension themselves, however, and the TTC has made it clear that there will not be enough funding for two subway extensions at the same time. But Wulkan is confident that Scarborough will win over.

“It just doesn’t seem feasible to take an existing service [the SRT] and just axe it,” he said. Wulkan hopes the study will present an estimate of the costs for extended TTC services to UTSC in March, the date of the next scheduled public consultation.

Scarborough student public transit riders are not suffering alone. Parking equipment malfunctions caused by lightning were the biggest issue that SCSU VP Students and Equity Nicole Joron had to face during the first few months of the fall session. Burnt-out electronics meant that the parking gates had to be left open for more than a month until late October, when they could be fixed.

“A lot of students had a lot of questions, and those people who had purchased their parking passes were upset that other students who didn’t were able to get into the parking lots,” said Joron.

Regular checks by UTSC Parking Services on the availability of parking spaces revealed that the lots were never completely filled.

“You were still getting the service you paid for, you still got a spot, even though it may not have been the spot you wanted,” said Joron.

Though the SCSU will not compensate students who were inconvenienced, Parking Services has decided not to sell winter passes unless a person meets certain criteria, such as only being enrolled in winter courses. This is to ensure that people who abused the system and used the “free” parking at the beginning have to buy passes for the full year, including the fall.

Campus safety is also an “ongoing issue” for Joron, after power outages took out lights in the parking lots and some red-painted emergency phone polls broke. Transit and parking may be only the first consequences of UTSC’s continuing population growth.

If getting to UTSC is tough, The Varsity’s Sabrina Singh finds the trek to U of T at Missisauga has its own set of headaches. Check out The Varsity on Thursday for the second part of our look at the transit problems facing U of T’s satellite campuses.