By: Catherine Spicer

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UATV) — Razorback Transit and Parking Services has made changes ahead of the 2026-2027 school year. 

Route 27, added August 1, is a new bus route that runs through College Avenue and has stops at the Northwest Arkansas Mall and Harmon Parking Garage. It was previously operated by Ozark Regional Transit.

“It was useful for us at Razorback Transit to have a route that is more on the east side of Fayetteville,” Drew Watzke, associate director of communications for transit and parking, said. “Seems like people have appreciated Route 27. We actually heard from the city that ridership on that route from last year to this year is up over 100 percent.”

One U of A student, Azlon Thomas, said the new route cut down the time she was taking to get to campus.

“I am most impressed by the fact that they collected so many useful locations on the same route,” Thomas said. “I was having to take almost an hour longer to get here driving down to Lot 320 or Lot 500 to wait for the bus there because there is no nearby parking at this point.” 

There is also a new parking app, Park UARK. On the app, drivers can enter their permit type and see what lots and garages are available to them and receive other parking related notifications.

“We are still kind of in the initial phase of the app,” Watzke said. “The more people that download the app the more data the app will have.”

Watzke also said that Transit and Parking has worked to combat issues with the bus routes. 

“We definitely have on our more popular routes, we will definitely fill up,” Watzke said “We work to address that issue by providing more buses on those routes.”