The Quinnipiac shuttle. Oh, the Quinnipiac shuttle. I think everyone has a few stories about the Quinnipiac shuttle. My story is probably like every other QU student’s tale. So here it goes: My roommates and I went to a concert one fine Wednesday night in New Haven. We thought, “How great would it be if we could take a reliable ride to New Haven and not have to pay a cent, since we pay so much to go here; why should we have to pay more when the university offers a service already?”
We had no problem getting on the shuttle to New Haven; it was fast, easy and smooth, and we expected the same in return. We left the concert at about 10:45 p.m. and thought we had plenty of time to get to the shuttle. So we walked down the road to the shuttle stop at Temple and Chapel Street. And we waited and waited and waited for about 25 to 30 minutes. We got there pretty early just to make sure we didn’t miss it, but the shuttle was nowhere to be seen.
We thought maybe it was running late so we looked at the shuttle app and it had already headed back to Quinnipiac. How had that happened? It didn’t even come at all.
Our phones were all dying since we thought we would just hop on the shuttle, but my roommate called Public Safety. My roommate told the Public Safety officer that she was very frustrated because we were stranded in the middle of New Haven with no shuttle in sight. The Public Safety officer put her on hold and after 10 minutes, without anyone getting back on the line, she called again. Finally, the Public Safety officer said the shuttle was already on its way back and we needed to find another ride to campus, which she said the school would maybe pay for (NOT).
At this point we were all a little frustrated and ended up calling a friend to come get us. I know this story is probably one of many, but it’s not right. If I want to go to New Haven for a concert and am relying on a shuttle as transportation, I should be able to trust the school will send a shuttle back to pick us up. It’s not fair nor safe for three young women to be standing in the middle of New Haven close to midnight with dying phones, hoping a shuttle will come when there are none on the way.
Not only that, but the Public Safety officer took so long to respond and tell us we had to find our own way back. If we go to this school, the officers should be able to give us a quick response. What if it was something urgent and the officer put us on hold? I understand there are a lot of students with problems all the time, but running a reliable shuttle shouldn’t be that hard.
Last year, everyone complained about how awful the shuttles were to York Hill and Public Safety fixed the problem. There are always shuttles on York now and the complaining has definitely decreased because of it. I don’t need to leave an hour before my class to make sure I will make it to class on time.
This is a problem with a very simple solution. Run the shuttles when they are supposed to be running and be there to pick up when it says on the schedule.
