Opinion Board | All aboard

Explore Philadelphia! It's an upbeat message which the University (and the DP) often sends, as if students can simply jaunt around the city of brotherly love at their slightest whim.

Just a few problems: SEPTA is a pathetic excuse for public transportation, taxis can be prohibitively expensive and most students have neither the time nor the ability to walk everywhere.

So credit to the nascent Graduate University and Professional Student Assembly for doing something to facilitate students getting around downtown by funding the Octobus.

The Octobus is a new shuttle operated by Penn transit which will stop at 38th and Walnut streets, travel as far east as Broad Street and head down to Lombard Street before looping back to campus.

GAPSA originally conceived of the Octobus as a safe way to get grad students back home late at night, which isn't a bad idea considering the recent crime wave and the unattractiveness of a late-night SEPTA ride (if SEPTA is even running when you're going home).

But it's also a fantastic (not to mention free) way for undergrads to explore downtown Philadelphia.

In fact, the UA piggybacked on the effort last week passing a measure to endorse a co-sponsorship of the Octobus, so that undergrads could also take advantage of the new shuttle.

Good for them, although it would have been nice to have seen the UA take its own initiative on the matter.

Still, it's up to Penn students to prove that they actually would use expanded and University-sponsored transportation around the city if the University were to provide better options.

As Kara Yokley, who is spearheading the project, said last week, Octobus is "basically a data collection exercise to figure out what the real need is."

Let's show them that there is one.

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