By Vaughntay Mcgraw

THE shuttle service is a fixture on campus, taking students to and from the dorms. It runs seven days a week.

Because of the parking garage being closed for repairs, the shuttle goes to ALL stops here on campus. For now, the express schedule has been eliminated. There are two shuttles running throughout the day, with one continuing at night. The operating hours are 7 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. Mondays through Wednesdays, 7 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 9:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Saturdays and 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Sundays.

The shuttle stops are as follows:

According to the ride systems app, this route is called the Parking Garage Closure Shuttle; it is in red.

• Creek Crossing

• Northside Common

• Wolf Hall

• Spring Garden Apartments

• Readco Lot

• Rail Trail Lot

• Grumbacher/Diehl

It’s a service that residential students use with regularity, one that came up during the recent town hall with school President Pamela Gunter-Smith. Students asked why there isn’t access to better public transportation that would take them around the city of York, and why there isn’t a partnership with Rabbit Transit. Gunter-Smith responded by saying that the school has offered it in the past but they didn’t have the ridership to continue it. She continued to say that the global COVID-19 pandemic prompted a lot of people to retire, so that has impacted the school’s ability to maintain shuttle drivers. Currently, there is a shortage of them.

She also said the parking garage closing affected the need for shuttles in the commuter lots on West Campus during the day.

Some students have expressed an interest in seeing the shuttle run later on the weekends. Timothy Langletz, a lieutenant in the Campus Safety Police Department who heads up the shuttle transportation, said in regard to that: “We haven’t had any official request from the Student Senate regarding shuttles starting earlier on the weekends, although I am not opposed.”

While getting the Senate to sign off on the early deployment for the shuttle would be welcome by a segment of the campus community, there is the other side to that. “The earlier we would have to stop at night, because of budgetary constraints,” Langletz said.

Not having the shuttle run later can leave some students walking in the dark and, in some cases, not feeling safe. A secondary stop or small expansion up a few blocks could help increase the safety of the students and decrease the potential for an incident.

Langletz said in response, “We encourage our students to live on campus in college-owned housing, which is the safest option.”

Joshua Landau, PhD, who is YCP’s associate provost for student success, was asked about the shuttle and safety during a recent visit to The Spartan class. “I don’t want anyone walking home uncomfortably,” he said, asking everyone if they were familiar with the LiveSafe app. “It’s not a perfect tool, but it is a tool you can use if you don’t feel comfortable. I would encourage people to use it.”

He went on to say that, based on hearing what was said during the town hall, that the school is looking at how the shuttle travels. “I did hear the president say that we’re having trouble getting shuttle drivers, and that’s a problem.”

For those who couldn’t make the town hall, then issues such as the shuttle can be raised with an email to the president at collegepresident@ycp.edu.

Talk to students and you’ll find a variety of shuttle requests, including this one from Bella Covell. “I think that the shuttle should include a stop for the new Springettsbury Apartments,” she said.

The final Issue raised at the town hall and during the provost’s visit was the shuttle tracker, which was inoperable for a period of time.. Landau explained that in the recent move by phone carriers to switch from 3G to 5G that it disrupted what those trackers were able to do.

But that problem has since been fixed.

Vaughntay Mcgraw is a junior majoring in biology. Reporter Taryn Cook contributed to the story.