by Kaitlin Barr
October 22, 2007

Students board the off-campus shuttle outside of Brown Chapel.  Some students complain about the shuttle system’s inefficiency. Photo by Kaitlin Barr

PLNU freshmen often rely on the off-campus shuttle Thursday through Sunday to go shopping, visit the bank or get to work. But some say that the shuttle is not always reliable.

“I was waiting for 45 minutes because the shuttle was late,” said freshman Aubrey Perkins. “And then when it arrived it wasn’t going to pick us up because it was late and didn’t want to be late for the other pick-ups.”

Freshman McKenzie Jank had a similar experience.

“The shuttle was 10 minutes early when we were supposed to get picked up,” she said. “We had to run down the street to catch it.”
Fred Ebrahimi, transportation manager of Physical Plant, said that students should be able to depend on the shuttle most of the time.

“The shuttle is supposed to be 80 percent accurate,” said Ebrahimi. “But from 3 to 7 p.m. [shuttle drivers] have no control.”

Traffic, accidents and equipment malfunctions often delay the shuttle, he said, throwing it off schedule.

Sophomore Traci Wilson, who utilized the shuttle last year, said that anyone using the shuttle should “block out a lot of time, because if you’re on some kind of time restraint you will indubitably get messed up.”

The shuttle runs on a one-hour circuit. It first departs at 3 p.m. and returns for the last time at midnight on Thursdays and Fridays. It departs at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Freshman Kathryn Buerer and her friends arrived just before 2 p.m. at the off-campus shuttle stop one Sunday afternoon. But the shuttle did not.

“We waited until around 3:30 and then called Public Safety to see if it was even running that day,” Buerer said. “They said it was…We then decided that it was not worth it to waste our day sitting at the shuttle stop, so we left.”

Ebrahimi said that a student driver had traded that shift with a co-worker. They had misunderstood each other so “no one showed up that day.”

“Public Safety was supposed to call me,” Ebrahimi said.

The shuttle drivers can communicate to Public Safety by cell phone. The shuttle passes by the Welcome Center when it is running. Every hour they wave at the Welcome Center” informing Public Safety they are operating, Ebrahimi said.

Even though freshman Cameron Beyenberg described the shuttle system as “a little inconvenient,” he added. “I really do enjoy the shuttle. It’s just sometimes it’s a little late or not there at all. It’s cool, though.”