University of Wisconsin Transportation Services officials said Wednesday it would pull its administrative support of the SAFEride cab program within the next year and a half.

The move could potentially end the popular campus-safety service unless the administrative functions of the program are undertaken by another organization within that time.

"Our suggestion relative to SAFEcab is that ASM fund it through next year," UW Transportation Services Transportation Administrator Gordon Graham said. "They would have a year and a half to figure out some way to take over (the management) for the cab program."

UW Transportation Services provides management and, together with student segregated fees, partial funding for SAFE Nighttime Services.

Officials said SAFEcab services, specifically, are currently funded completely by student segregated-fee money, while UW Transportation Services provides the dispatchers who connect students to either SAFEcab operators or SAFEwalk staff patrolling campus.

However, with the passing of a revised budget for SAFE Nighttime Services by the Associated Students of Madison Wednesday night, SAFEride cab will not only lack administrative support, but also funding for the next fiscal year.

The new budget would provide no funding for the SAFEcab or walk programs, while adding money to the SAFEbus program.

ASM members believed that since university support of the SAFEcab program would be pulled regardless of their decision, they should zero-fund the SAFEcab program in hopes of finding different means to keep the program operating in the near future.

UW Transportation Services had previously sent a letter to the Student Services Finance Committee saying they "intend to fund SAFEwalk by eliminating the administrative, management and operational support for the cab program."

SSFC later cut half of the SAFEwalk budget during an October budget decision, before ASM completely zero-funded it last night.

However, UW Transportation Services officials said the cut to the SAFEwalk program is irrelevant, since they had recently decided to fund the program without any money from student segregated fees.

In an effort to divide the funding for SAFE Nighttime Services between the university and student segregated fees, UW Transportation Services had changed the sources of funding for its program so that SAFEwalk would be funded by the university, SAFEcab by student segregated fees and SAFEbus by a combination of the two.

Graham said that since the university and the students could not come to an agreement on what services are best suited for the purposes of campus safety, the two bodies should simply fund the programs they believe are most valuable.

"If students want it and they want to pay for it, what do we care?" Graham said, adding the university would be "happy" to help students organize an administration for a student-run, late-night cab program. "Whatever students would like us to do, we'd be happy to do it."

ASM members said in debate that they intend to pursue ways to manage a student-run cab program.

"We can do this," SSFC Vice Chair Eric Saar said. "We can come up with a cab program as a student body."