Sometimes during Gainesville's summer and fall, the sun becomes so unbearably hot on Newell Drive that Sarfaraz Suleman, a UF sophomore, has to improvise while waiting for the bus.
Suleman said he and his friends usually stand across the street under some trees and then run back to the bus stop when the bus comes.
"Gotta find shade around here somewhere," he said as he waited for his bus Monday afternoon.
But by next month, Suleman and other UF students can find relief under an aluminum shelter that will cover the benches at the bus stop near the corner of Museum Road and Newell Drive. That stop serves Regional Transit System routes 13, 16 and 17 and Sunday service route 405.
Chandler Rozear, UF Physical Plant Division project manager for the shelter's construction, said he expects the project to be completed in about three weeks.
Rozear said the renovation is part of an ongoing plan to add 10 new shelters to campus bus stops.
He said six of the shelters have already been constructed, but UF had to delay building the rest until more funding was secured.
The stop at Museum Road and Newell Drive is the only shelter Rozear plans to build this semester, but he said the others would be completed when more money comes in.
Ryan Moseley, UF Student Body president, said a transportation fee committee, made up of five UF students and four faculty members, allocates students' fees for the shelters.
If it has the money, the committee renovates a few bus stops each year because students consistently request the shelters, Moseley said.
Katie Schweiss, a UF English senior, said she's taken the No. 13 bus route for the past two years and always waits at the Newell Drive bus stop.
Schweiss said every time she got caught in the rain, she wished there was a bus stop overhang.
"It's not life-changing," she said of the coming shelter. "But it's pretty nice."
