By: Lydia Reagan ~Feature Editor~

You can hop on Bus 51 at the intersection of Dana and Newton Avenue. This route runs from Oakley to Uptown to Glenway Crossing Transit Center. Some of the hot spots along this route include Oakley Station, Hyde Park Plaza, Surrey Square and Rookwood Commons.

Bus 51 is also the starting point of your journey if you’re headed to Lunken Airport. You simply take the route until Erie and Shaw Avenue and then switch to Bus 24 heading toward Anderson.

You can also pick up Bus 4 if none of those destinations are on your radar. It leaves from the corner of Dana and Montgomery, right by Delicio and the Pop Shop. It can take you up to Kenwood Shopping Center or down to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Another key bus that stops around Xavier is the Metro Plus, or M+. The Xavier stop is located right next to Smith Hall on the corner of Dana and Ledgewood (you can also jump on Bus 51 from here). M+ can take you to Kenwood as well as Clifton and the Megabus stop downtown.

Cincinnati’s public transportation system is one that Xavier students never seem to take advantage of. It’s cheap, and it helps reduce our global carbon footprint. Plus, it also saves you the hassle of finding parking or fighting Cincinnati traffic on your own.

One factor that often keeps people from using public transportation is that they just don’t know how. Reading the MetroBus schedules can be confusing, but it just takes practice. The more you do it, the more comfortable you’ll get. If you’re just starting out and are feeling a bit overwhelmed, there are some solutions to this. Google Transit is a handy little website that lets you plan out the quickest bus journey to get to your destination. There’s also an app called Cincy EZRide, which makes it convenient if you ever get lost in your exploration of the city.

You can also use this app to buy your ticket. If you’re not interested in downloading the app, you can buy your ticket or pass on the bus, at certain kiosks and vending machines around the city or online.

For more information, you can also check out go-metro.com to learn about tickets, fares and riding the metro.