Big News!

Thanks to the tireless efforts of the WSA Shuttle Committee, Marcello Curridori of Wesleyan Transportation Services, and Dave Meyer of Public Safety, with additional funding from the Wesleyan Administration, significant progress has been made on transportation, which include:

$5 Shuttles to/from New Haven!
Coverage: Usdan Center <--> Union Station, New Haven
Departures: Friday 6pm / Sunday 3pm
Returns: Friday 7pm / Sunday 4pm
Cost: $5
Additional Info: Tickets are available at the University Box Office in the Usdan Center. Friday shuttle reservations must be made by Thursday at 4pm. Sunday shuttle reservations must be made by Friday at 4pm.

FREE Daily Shuttle to DATTCO Bus Stop!
Where: Usdan Center <--> DATTCO Bus Stop (Middletown Park & Ride)
Departures: Daily, 8am
Returns: Daily, 8:30am
Cost: FREE
Additional Info: Reservations are available in your student portfolio, here. Reservations must be made by 3pm the day before departure. This shuttle connects to DATTCO commuter bus to New Haven and Hartford, which costs $4.65 one way (exact change required).

The WSA Shuttle Committee are: Saul Carlin '09 and Andrea Neustein '08, with David Markowitz and Jennifer Liebschutz '11 this semester, and Cesar Medina and Melgily Valdez '09 last semester. (Hunter Craighill, though a lovely person, was not involved - he's just letting me use his account).

Free Shuttle For Finals!

Triomphe! Thanks to the efforts of SAFT and the WSA Shuttle Committee, Marcello Curridori and Dave Meyer in Transportation Services have agreed to run a FREE finals week shuttle service to the Park & Ride Lot to meet up with the morning New Haven commuter bus Monday 12/17 through Thursday 12/20 (there are apparently no drivers available Friday morning as of now).

No reservations are required. Show up slightly early.
Shuttle departs every day from Usdan at 8am to meet the 8:15am DATTCO bus to New Haven, and the 8:30am DATTCO to Hartford.
For more information, contact Andrea Neustein '08, Saul Carlin '09, Cesar Medina '09, or Melgily Valdez '09.

Brief!

Quick post:

WSA Shuttle Committee will be following up with Dave Meyer and Peter Patton on Tuesday regarding the funding allotted to the shuttle by President Roth.

We will be meeting for 30 minutes tomorrow
Monday 12/10/2007
6:30pm
at 162A Church Street
with snacks!

Us vs. Them!

Is Wesleyan's transportation system competitive with peer institutions?

A little web digging and a lot of assistance from the pioneering Estrella Lopez '07 and Zach Blau '09 reveals that Williams offers shuttle service to New York ($26 one-way), Boston ($16), and Albany before breaks, while Amherst has a fleet of hybrid University-owned cars available for student rental, an account with ZipCar, and 3-4 Peter Pan buses to major cities every day (3 to NY, 4 to Boston, and additional weekend times). Bard provides students with free Saturday shuttle service to nearby malls, plus access to $1 tickets on the Duchess County bus to the Poughkeepsie Metro-North (located 40 minutes away from campus - sounds kind of like New Haven). Tufts students get free Friday-Saturday shuttle service into Boston from 9pm-3am, plus access to ZipCar for a reduced rate. Trinity has an entirely student-run shuttle service that runs through Hartford in the evening, all week. But the winner is Bates, with $10 bus service to Boston once a month (that's a 2.5 hour trip!!), FREE weekend shuttle service to nearby malls, a deal with ZipCar, a fleet of rentable on-campus vehicles, and a BIKE CO-OP. What? Amazing! It can't help you get to New Haven, but it would prepare you for an extended adolescence in Brooklyn AND make you fit and healthy and keep the air clean! (photo, Bates' Bike Co-op fleet)

For...fun? Here is a link to the American Public Transportation Association's report titled "Public Transportation's Contribution to Greenhouse Gas Reduction". EON enthusiasts may be interested - and may want to recruit an EnviroScience major to decipher some of the graphs.

Because that's what I do for fun.

Eat up that Thanksgiving bird...

Come on down.

Big thanks to Alex and Wesleying for linking us up this week - 170 unique visitors looked at our Transportation Breakdown post on Monday alone! Hope we helped some of you find a ride - or at least introduced you to the labyrinthine world of Middletown transit.

Love to Wesleying, Wesleyan, and to all a good night.

Update - Meeting with Patton / Meyer!

Monday, November 19  - Members of SAFT on the WSA New Haven Shuttle Committee met with Vice President Peter Patton and Public Safety Chief Dave Meyer to present a list of suggestions on how to improve the transportation system at Wesleyan. Among other issues discussed were:

- Additional trips to/from New Haven on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays

- bus to DATTCO station 3 times daily during finals week

- Online booking for shuttle tickets

- $12 New Haven tix, as discussed by Tran. Services / Estrella Lopez '07
- Re-opening the ZipCar discussion
- installing signs at the Box Office about shuttle tix

Patton and Meyer tentatively agreed to many of these proposals. Once a final decision is reached, a full list of approved changes will be published!

Apparently, President Roth independently raised the issue of transportation costs in an open meeting in Hewitt. Awesome! We'd love to have Roth drop by for crepes and a chat one Monday night. Maybe in the near future...

MEETING PART DEUX!

We are meeting at 6:30pm today in the University Organizing Center at 162 Church Street (see map at right). This week we will form committees to address different initiatives, which currently include:

- ZipCar!
- our demands for the Wesleyan Shuttle
- a proposal for Vice President Peter Patton
- raising awareness about Wesleyan transportation - both its existence, and it's current flaws

Patton has clearly stated to WSA that THE SCHOOL WILL PRIORITIZE TRANSPORTATION in the Annual Strategy if students express sufficient interest. We need to prove that students care about this issue! Bring friends and ideas (about issues we have or haven't thought of yet). Maybe I'll make a train cake (see above left). See you there...