U Weekly. Serving The Ohio State University in Columbus Ohio

The 'Autobus deFiesta'

Meet the driver of your Party Bus

By Michael Amann

Students who frequent the Gateway on the weekends have probably noticed it before - the idling bus with an engine loud enough to drown the drunken shouts from nearby bars.

This particular Saturday night, the seats of the blue school bus are empty as its driver talks on the phone. He isn't waiting for school children and he's not some lost, misguided Michigan tailgater. The driver's name is Alex, and he will be ferrying dozens of drunk or soon-to-be-drunk students away from the south campus area and into the Arena District. He is not part of some bizarre one-man humanitarian effort to help college students get wasted, but one of the several drivers of the Urban Express Charter Arena District Bus Service, affectionately known as "The Party Bus." The bus is free to students courtesy of an association of bars from the Arena District.

"They hired us to shuttle back and forth students from Ohio State," said Ken Isenberg, a Sales Manager at Urban Express Charter who laughed when he first heard his shuttle referred to as "The Party Bus."

Since 2007 the service has been a way for students to avoid cab fares after paying the bar tab.

Alex has only been a driver about five months, but he's been there long enough to see plenty.

"You should come here in the summer. That's when it gets really crazy," said Alex.

Indeed, in the few years it has been available, the bus has taken a bit of a beating.

"We've gone through three or four busses already," said Isenberg. "It's just like an amusement park ride. They can only take so much use before you have to get rid of them."

"We take care of the kids, that's for sure," Isenberg added.

Free stuff always costs something, however. The wait for the bus is much longer than finding a cab, even if the night is slow. "The bus drives ... every 20 or 30 minutes," Alex said.

Furthermore, the lack of a definitive schedule can cause confusion.

"I don't know the schedule," said Matt Leahy, who said he has been on the Party Bus about 15 times. "If it's not there or there's too many people, I'll just go to the Gateway."

Others go into a sort of free-ride feeding frenzy.

"They almost rip the door off sometimes," Alex said.

The demand is so great, the bus often does not have enough room for everyone. The bus makes round trips, but some students don't always wait around.

"One guy couldn't get on because it was too packed and all his friends got on," said Alex Wozniakowski, an Ohio State senior. "[He] chased the bus down as it was pulling away and jumped into the bus through an open window."

This was Wozniakowski's first trip on the Party Bus.

"Everybody was screaming," said Aaron Weisman of the mysterious bus jumper.

"The whole bus went nuts," Wozniakowski added.

The logjam is exacerbated by the Party Bus's lone threshold for entrance and egress.

"There is a big struggle!" Alex said with a laugh. "Trust me!"

"I have seen a couple people throw up," Leahy said.

Yet, clean up is easy for the maintenance crew.

"We just hose 'em down," Isenberg said. "That's why we use school busses."

Then there's a different type of mess to clean up: slumbering riders.

"I yell, 'Hey buddy go home!' He says, 'I don't wanna go home!'" Alex recounted.

Some might even consider the bus a "therapeutic" stress relief from school, Alex said. He laughs about the songs that the students like to sing.

"Cha! Cha! Cha!," Alex said. "My gracious ...."

Originally Published: January 27, 2010

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