The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, September 15, 2021 — 3

CAMPUS LIFE
Freshman creates unofficial 

Blue Bus tracking app

Akinci programmed ‘M-Bus’after frustrations with ‘U’ app

Engineering 
freshman 
Efe 

Akinci, an Ann Arbor native, 
struggled 
to 
navigate 
the 

University of Michigan’s Magic 
Bus application last year and 
decided to do something about it. 

So this past summer, Akinci 

designed and programmed his 
own unofficial app — M-Bus — 
that tracks when buses arrive in 
real-time.

“(The 
University-affiliated 

app Magic Bus) just loads their 
webpage, so it feels a little clunky 
because it’s basically a webpage 
in an app,” Akinci said. “I wanted 
to make my own so that when I 
came (to Michigan) I would be 
able to find bus stops and buses 
and have a better experience with 
it.”

Akinci said he spent two weeks 

creating the app and then made 
it available for download on the 
App Store and Google Play. Akinci 
then shared his app with close 
friends and posted to the U-M 
subreddit promoting his app. 
Soon enough, downloads for the 
app began to increase. 

“I was expecting like twenty 

or thirty people to download it,” 
Ackinci said. “And then the first 
day I launched it, I think about 
650 people downloaded it, which 
I was not expecting. I hadn’t 
made the app to handle that, and 
the app crashed on its first day.”

Since 
then, 
Akinci 
has 

reworked 
the 
app 
to 
avoid 

crashes.

“It’s not a very intensive 

program, at least on the back end, 
so I don’t see any reason why 
it wouldn’t be able to support 
every single person here using it,” 
Akinci said. 

The M-Bus app relies on 

Application 
Programming 

Interface data that the University 
acquired 
through 
its 
2020 

contract with Clever Devices, 
the 
supplier 
that 
facilitated 

the switch from the previous 
University-affiliated app Double 
Map to Magic Bus. Akinci said he 
uses the same data the University 
uses, ensuring the app’s accuracy.

“As far as I can tell, (the 

contract) comes with a standard 
package that includes a developer 
API, so that’s what I’m using. It’s 
all standardized and very well 
documented,” Akinci said. “It 
comes from the same data that U 
of M uses.”

Moving forward, Akinci said 

he plans to change the app so 
that each time the University 
updates its bus routes, the app 
automatically adds the new routes 
without requiring users to update 
their app to the newest version. 

Since launching in August, 

Akinci’s M-Bus has garnered 57 
ratings on the Apple App Store, 
with an average rating of 4.9 stars 
as of Sept. 8. 

Akinci’s 
frustrations 
with 

the University’s official bus app, 
Magic Bus, are shared among 
many of its users. When the 
University first launched Magic 
Bus in early 2020, students 
said the app’s features were not 
intuitive and bus positions were 
not always updated. 

LSA sophomore Jack Sweeting 

uses the U-M bus system a couple 
of times a week and switched 
from Magic Bus to M-Bus.

“I don’t use the (Michigan) 

Magic Bus app; I use the M-Bus 
app, which I’ve found is a bit more 
accurate than the official one by 
the school,” Sweeting said. “Even 
then sometimes the (M-Bus) app 
can be a little inaccurate on the 

timing. But it’s usually pretty 
helpful for knowing when a bus is 
going to be there.”

Sweeting also said he thinks 

the M-Bus app uses a more “user-
friendly interface,” compared to 
Magic Bus, which shows users 
more maps and screens. 

Music, 
Theatre 
& 
Dance 

sophomore Carlos Pirela Romero 
regularly commutes from North 
to Central Campus and said he 
prefers to use Google Maps over 
the Magic Bus app because of its 
simplicity. Pirela Romero said he 
had not yet used M-Bus.

“I think Google Maps is more 

user-friendly than Magic (Bus),” 
Pirela Romera said. “Magic Bus 
has a lot of stats, a lot of drop-
down menus. It gets a little 
complicated.”

Currently, the app is run 

entirely by Akinci, who said he 
doesn’t earn profit from the app. 
Akinci said before launching, 
he received permission from 
the 
University’s 
Logistics, 

Transportation 
& 
Parking 

department to create the app. 

“I did ask if they were okay 

with the app existing, and they 
said they were fine with it as long 
as it had no U of M branding and 
I didn’t make money … from it,” 
Akinci said. “They know the app 
exists and they’re fine with it 
existing, which is really all that I 
can ask for.”

The 
University 
Logistics, 

Transportation 
& 
Parking 

department did not respond to 
requests for comment.

For the time being, Akinci said 

he plans to continue running 
the app but said he would not be 
opposed to handing the app over 
to other students in the future.

SARAH WILLIAMS

Daily Staff Reporter

GOVERNMENT
Biden extends student loan 
moratorium to Jan. 2022

Program was initially supposed to end Sept. 2021

On Aug. 6, President Joe Biden 

announced his administration 
would be extending the student 
loan 
moratorium 
from 
the 

original end date in September 
2021, allowing borrowers to 
pause repayment until Jan. 31, 
2022. 

The loan moratorium initially 

began on March 13, 2020 and is 
a period of suspended federal 
loan payments, frozen interest 
rates for loans accruing interest 
and a pause on defaulted loan 
collection for borrowers across 
the country. 

The 
relief 
measures 
are 

selective and determined by 
the ownership of the loan, 
meaning only a subset of loans 
are “eligible” for this suspension. 
While 
defaulted 
and 
non-

defaulted loans owned by the 
U.S Department of Education, 
defaulted 
HEAL 
loans 
and 

non-defaulted Federal Family 
Education Loan (FFEL) Program 
loans all qualify for relief, 
commercially-owned 
lender 

loans, school-owned loans and 
private loans do not.

When 
asked 
about 
the 

targeted eligibility of student 
loan relief, CSG President Nithya 
Arun, a Public Health senior, 
questioned the selectivity.

“This 
is 
a 
demonstrated 

need,” Arun said. “I think it’s the 
government’s duty to cover that, 
especially because at the end of 
the day, you’d be investing in our 
economy in the long run. And I 
really don’t think there’s a need 
to be selective because we can 
cover the cost of it. It’s just that 
we choose not to.”

In an email to The Michigan 

Daily, LSA junior and founder of 

U-M’s Students for Biden Andrew 
Schaeffler 
said 
he 
believes 

Biden’s plan is a great start in 
giving aid to those who need it 
most, especially considering the 
challenge of broadly canceling 
student debt.

“More broad-based student 

loan forgiveness could run into 
more legal problems, require 
legislative action or could be 
reduced by future Republican 
administrations, and taking it in 
a more nuanced and specific way 
is more important,” Schaeffler 
wrote. “In essence, this structure 
allows for those truly wronged by 
predatory lenders or other more 
urgent situations to be targeted 
and have their loans forgiven, a 
much more succinct process.”

In his statement from The 

White House, Biden said the 
current extension would be 
the final one. After Jan. 31, 
borrowers would have to be 
prepared to start repaying their 
loan payments.

Schaeffler said he believes the 

Biden administration’s timing 
and forgiveness measures of the 
extension was greatly needed 
given the pandemic.

“As job numbers continue to 

grow and the impacts of COVID-
19 continue to slowly subside, 
I believe that this extension 
is 
fair,” 
Schaeffler 
wrote. 

“However, as we get closer to 
January 2022, we will see how 
appropriate another extension 
would be; there is probably not 
a specific time that would be 
‘good’ to restart payments, so 
this timing, being a few months 
from now, is as good a time as 
possible.”

On this point, Arun said she 

disagrees with putting a cap on 
the moratorium. She said she 
believes decisions shouldn’t be 

made when the trajectory and 
full impact of the pandemic is 
unknown. Because loans are a 
significant burden even without 
the impacts of a pandemic, 
Arun said considering post-grad 
education in a time of COVID-
19 uncertainty is unknown and 
anxiety-inducing.

“I’m scared for myself in terms 

of post-grad,” Arun said. “I will 
not have the financial capability to 
just pay that in full without a loan. 
So that is something that provokes 
fear in me.”

Considering 
the 
Biden 

administration’s 
student 
debt 

forgiveness has topped $9.5 billion 
so far, Schaeffler said he believes 
Biden is ‘fully committed’ to 
achieving students’ loan relief and 
fighting for their education. 

“Biden 
supports 
and 
has 

proposed a legislative package that 
would include free undergraduate 
tuition 
for 
students 
from 

families who make less than 
$125,000,” 
Schaeffler 
wrote. 

“He has proposed nearly $800 
billion of spending pertaining to 
education, including $450 billion 
for child care and universal pre-
kindergarten programs, as well as 
funding for school infrastructure 
and free community college.”

Arun said given the Biden 

campaign’s support for immediate 
$10,000 forgiveness per student 
borrower, she believes Biden 
has still not delivered enough on 
forgiving student loans.

“That was one of his promises 

and he still hasn’t followed 
through 
on 
that 
campaign 

promise,” Arun said. “I think there 
is room in the budget to cover the 
cost of education, especially higher 
education.”

Daily Staff Reporter Justine Ra can 
be reached at rjustine@umich.edu. 

JUSTINE RA

Daily Staff Reporter

Kwame Anthony Appiah | New York University

What Is It? Do Most of
 Us Need It, and Why?

Thursday
SEPT. 16
2021

8:00-10:00 p.m.

Rackham 
Auditorium

SYMPOSIUM

Friday, Sept. 17, 2021 

10:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Rackham Amphitheater

Juliana Bidadanure

(Stanford)

Joshua Cohen 

(UC Berkeley)

Andrea Veltman 

(James Madison)

Symposiasts:

2021 Tanner Lecture on Human Values

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

