The Independent Student Newspaper of St. John's University

The Torch

The Independent Student Newspaper of St. John's University

The Torch

The Independent Student Newspaper of St. John's University

The Torch

Students make use of new shuttle bus service

St. John’s has recently began a shuttle service that transports students to and from the Queens campus to the two off campus apartments, DePaul and Seton and the Kew Gardens-Union Turnpike train station.A special weekend service also takes students to and from several different locations in Manhattan.

The intended purpose of the shuttle is to allow students easy access to the train station or to Manhattan. Many students have agreed that the shuttle is extremely beneficial and is something that St. John’s needed to implement a long time ago.

“It is very convenient,” said Angelica Vega, a sophomore in the Seton complex. “Not everyone has money to take the bus, so it’s a good idea.”

Although a majority of students say the shuttle service is a convenience, many have complaints about the frequency of the service.

“It’s good and effective, but it should be arranged around people’s class schedules,” Stacia Nicholson, a senior living in the Seton complex, said.

The shuttle service has buses running every hour from Kew Gardens. The students then get picked up en route to the Queens campus once every hour. This causes many students that live in the off-campus housing to have to wake up earlier than necessary in order to get to class on time. Many students requested that the shuttle comes every half hour.

Students have also complained about the inconsistency of the departure times from the bus stops. Several students have filed reports with Residence Life regarding shuttles that leave the stops before the schedule time. The buses have then been called to turn around to retrieve the students that were left behind. This leaves some questioning the lack of communication between the University and the bus company.

Although none of the Big Apple tours buses are ever filled, the students who do ride the shuttle find that it is one of the best improvements St. John’s has made this school year.

“The shuttle is good because it saves money and [it] smells kind of nice too,” senior James Karz said.

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