LARAMIE - Expansion of the University of Wyoming's bus transit system, including "park-and-ride" lots in south and west Laramie, would probably be more cost- effective than building a multi-story parking structure across from Old Main, UW Trustees were told recently.

Mark Collins, UW associate vice president for operations, also said that the city and the university need to quickly establish a transportation system to serve the recently-opened hotel and conference center complex just east of the football stadium.

Collins said that the UW Conference Center hosted a meeting of 500 theater students as one of its first bookings. "Those people were pretty much stuck there, without transportation to downtown or the university," he said.

Collins, a former Laramie city manager, said a survey of 55 other universities indicated that "parking garages are becoming a thing of the past" because of high construction and maintenance costs. He said that providing incentives for using the bus system and car-pooling, building wider and better-lit walkways and expanded bike lanes, along with enhancements to the bus system, would provide a more complete solution.

When the new Informational Technology building now under construction in the dormitory area is completed, UW's computer facilities will move out of the old Ivinson Hospital building at 10th and Ivinson, which the university plans to demolish. Whether to build a parking garage there, to lessen the problem of UW staff and students parking in nearby neighborhoods, has been discussed for several years.

Collins said UW has a surplus of free parking spaces at the east end of campus where the present bus system picks up passengers. The problem, he said, is that large portions of UW commuters live in west or south Laramie and are not inclined to drive to the east side to get the bus. He suggested that establishing well-lit parking areas and bus stops near the Wyoming Territorial Park and on south 15th Street would lessen the number of commuters who would otherwise park in the neighborhoods around campus.

The pedestrian crossing at 15th and Ivinson, where dormitory residents cross to campus, is probably the busiest such crossing in the state, Collins said. That crossing, and the Fraternity/Sorority Row intersection one block north, need improvements such as visible countdown timers. He said a sophomore sorority resident was struck by a left-turning vehicle at that intersection last week.

Other ideas under study are converting Ivinson to a one-way street and installing electronic maps which would show the movement of buses along the transit routes, Collins said.