Ding-dong, the witch is dead. I mean the bus loop. Follow campus issues for too long and it’s hard to tell the difference.

For years, students have whined, written, bitched, moaned, groused, argued and sang that the bus loop was a bad idea. Now that it is gone, some will point to this as an example of how students can make a difference, stop the administration and teach the world to live in perfect harmony.

But before we pat ourselves too much on the back for this, let’s keep in mind that the project has been scrapped because TransLink doesn’t have the $10 million needed after a recession, and that changed governance and funding structures have made life difficult for them—not because anyone really cared what students thought.

This is a symbolic victory more than anything else. But then again, the bus loop was always more of a symbol.

Over a 20-year span, UBC built and built, expanded and expanded, transforming itself from a large, yet relatively sleepy university, into a small city, complete with tall shiny condos and a billion-dollar endowment. And for the most part, students got the proverbial shaft—we were never meaningfully consulted, and our opinion was considered a secondary concern, at best.

So in 2003, when the university proposed that the University Boulevard/Wesbrook Place entrance-to-campus-by-default would be turned into a neighbourhood full of market housing, a shopping mall and retail space, which would fund a $50 million bus loop that would go underneath it all…well, you can imagine the student outrage. Or at least what passes for outrage on this campus.

Students on the left criticized the sell-out to corporate and market interests in the heart of campus. Students in the centre (there is no “right” on campus) complained the area for the bus loop was too small and the technology around it still unproven. Thousands signed petitions against it. Songs were sung. Activists arrested. Ask a fifth-year student what that “Trek Park” sign beside the Knoll means if you want the full story.

But along the way, a funny thing happened. UBC got a president in the form of Stephen Toope who seemed to actually care just a little bit what students thought. Plans for the above-ground portion of the project (the shopping ’n’ condos part) were scrapped. In its place was a new SUB, one that the university would pony up $25 million towards and that, logically—though surprisingly—would become the centrepiece of campus.
But for some reason, for 18 months after the new SUB was approved, the bus loop, like the rotten corpse of a fading empire, still persisted as a proposed reality. UBC still had plans approved for it, still spent money preparing the project, still waited for TransLink to pony up the money, and didn’t seem to care that the main reasons for building the structure in the first place had vanished.

Maybe I’ve been getting too sucked into the 40th anniversary celebrations for Monty Python, but for the past couple of years, the bus loop was UBC’s Dead Parrot, a redundant shell they stubbornly nailed to a post and claimed was a good purchase, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.

“This bus loop can’t be built with the current technology.”

“What are you talking about? We’ve got plans for a remarkable bus loop. Beautiful technology!”

“But nothing has happened. If TransLink doesn’t have the money, why do you insist the bus loop is alive?”

“It’s just resting until the funding comes up!”

But I digress. Suffice to say, in 2003 a bus loop made little sense, in 2009 it made even less, and today, finally, mercifully, it appears to be dead. Ceased to be. An ex-bus loop. And students are better off for it.