The Student Services Finance Committee will vote Thursday on whether to zero-fund the SAFEwalk program and therefore end the program. Looking at the statistics provided in the SAFE budget proposal, the decision is simple: SAFEwalk is too expensive and too rarely used to warrant $60,000 worth of segregated fees.
The SAFE budget shows that only 0.2 percent of all SAFE users use SAFEwalk, meaning the average cost of each trip is $53. This is an abhorrent waste of money at a time when UW-Madison tuition has risen significantly, student organizations fight viciously over segregated fees and the UW budget is consistently slashed. A program that has such little demand does not deserve to receive so much funding. Simply put, the money could be better spent.
However, SSFC should not cut $60,000 from SAFE's budget and allocate it for unrelated programs. Rather, it should use the funding that would have otherwise gone to SAFEwalk to improve other SAFE services, namely SAFEride. The extra funding would alleviate the swamped phone lines and busy signals that greet students in the early morning hours and could add cars to the SAFE cab fleet that would eliminate the 45-minute waiting period that deters many from using this service.
SAFE provides an essential service to the UW-Madison campus; by operating the 81 and 82 bus routes and SAFEride, it provides free and effective ways for students to get around campus at night. However, in a time when budgets are trimmed to their leanest, SAFE must cut the fat. SAFEwalk does not deserve to be funded this year.
Please send responses to editorialboard@dailycardinal.com.
