More UTRGV riders than seats on shuttles

BY Monika Garza |THE RIDER

Last Wednesday, Joshua Valladares, a biomedical sciences junior, was left behind on the Brownsville campus because there were not enough seats on the three UTRGV shuttles that departed for Edinburg at 7:30 a.m.

UTRGV offers free transportation for students, faculty and staff who travel from one campus to the other through the Vaquero Express Connector Shuttle.

However, this semester, the shuttle service is experiencing growing pains.

“We are experiencing record ridership levels,” Rodney Gomez, UTRGV’s director of Parking and Transportation Services, told The Rider last Tuesday. “Looking at the first two weeks, ridership has gone out about 70 percent from the last semester. As of the end of last week, in total, we had a little under 4,000 students riding the shuttle.”

Not enough shuttles is creating anxiety among students, staff and faculty. Many students have been left behind on both campuses because there are not enough seats.

“If I am not here probably earlier than everyone else, it gets full,” Valladares said about the shuttle he takes at 7:30 a.m. from Brownsville to Edinburg.

The mother of a student who contacted The Rider and asked not to be identified, said her son boards the Vaquero Express Connector Shuttle in Harlingen to attend classes on the Edinburg campus; however, sometimes by the time the shuttle arrives in Harlingen, it is already full.

“We want to increase capacity,” Gomez said. “We are trying to get four additional units and we are also in the process of hiring more drivers.”

He said it takes a couple of months to get the vehicles.

Parking and Transportation Services has five full-time drivers and 11 part-time drivers, including five who are students.

“If students are interested in driving with us, we can certainly use the additional help,” Gomez said. “They can apply through Career Connection.”

Students aren’t the only members of the campus community who ride the shuttle.

“Faculty and staff make up about 4 percent of the total ridership,” Gomez said.

Some UTRGV students are complaining that they are not able to attend classes they already paid for or UTRGV student organization meetings because there aren’t enough shuttles.

“I had an important meeting at 9 a.m. from an organization and I won’t be able to make it just because the shuttle is full,” Valladares said.

Other students say they are arriving late to classes, which could affect their academic progress.

“I remember when the shuttle first started coming out. I tried it out, but I ended up being late to class,” said Michelle Garcia, a computer science senior on the Brownsville campus. “You can’t use that excuse with the professors. You can’t be like, ‘My bus was late.’ It’s not high school anymore.”

She added, “If we are going to have a shuttle service it should be efficient toward to our needs.”

Gomez is asking the campus community to be patient.

“We want to be able to provide the best service that we can and we certainly keep trying to make it better for students since that is our primary concern,” he said.