Discouraged by the lack of change in campus safety policy at last week’s Associated Student Government Senate meeting, several senators have decided to take action.

In a joint meeting Tuesday night, members of the External Relations and Student Services committees discussed several possible improvements to campus safety. Their ideas include providing low-cost, flat-rate taxi fares to students traveling home at night, distributing paper copies of the shuttle schedule and expanding the shuttle service, said Jane Lee, ASG external relations chairwoman.

The joint committee also examined options to expand police presence and improve offcampus lighting.

“We continue to lobby for as much police support as possible,” said Meredith Kesner, an off-campus senator who has spearheaded the ASG safety initiatives campaign. “But obviously there are constraints on budget.”

Kesner, a former DAILY staff member, said she has been dissatisfied with ASG’s actions to address safety concerns.

“Last week there were people in the Senate, myself included, that were really upset about a committee report that talked about safety problems and didn’t do anything about them,” said Kesner, a Medill senior. “(This week) we want to show Senate and the student body that we are actually doing something.”

At last week’s ASG Senate meeting, senators passed a resolution condemning the attacks against students this year. Senators also heard a report from the Student Services Committee that proposed ways to better improve safety.

Lee encouraged other student groups to adopt several safety measures that ASG uses among its members.

ASG has compiled a list of senators who own cars so that a senator who does not have a ride home can find someone to call, she said.

“There are a lot of initiatives that we’ve tried even within our own Senate,” Lee said. “We’re hoping that other student groups do it as well.”

Also on the safety subcommittee is Weinberg junior and Rainbow Alliance Sen. John Hughes. He said the group is planning to have a shuttle night with entertainment on the Purple Route buses that take students from Norris University Center to North and South campuses at night.

Hughes, a former DAILY Forum editor and current board member for Students Publishing Co., which oversees THE DAILY, added that the group, which meets once or twice a week, also has discussed the possibility of implementing a student-created computer software program called Techscort.

“(Techscort) would improve the efficiency of the escort service because it would post wait times on the Internet and update itself,” Hughes said. “It also queues calls in to the service to get people set up with a ride — this kind of routing could be very powerful because the service could carry more than one (party) at a time.”

Kesner said the two committees plan to present a report at tonight’s Senate meeting detailing ways they hope to improve safety, rather than present bills and resolutions that do not initiate concrete action.

“From this ad hoc safety committee,” Kesner said, “we decided that we’d rather put our time into actually making these initiatives happen rather than writing bills.”