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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