New shuttle plan addresses grad student concerns

“The new TigerTransit service ... will benefit the entire Princeton Community,” Jackson said in an interview. “The service offers wider access to campus, with stops that are not part of the current service.”

The current iteration of the transit system was the product of months of dialogue between the GSG and the Parking and Transportation department, and the plan has changed several times to accommodate graduate students’ interests.

The new system, which was originally proposed as part of the University’s 10-year Campus Plan, features dramatic changes to the shuttle lines and the introduction of a “campus circulator.”

The GSG has “worked very, very hard to try to make sure that graduate students’ interests were taken into account,” GSG press secretary Anne Twitty GS said in an interview. “We think we’ve done a good job and lobbied for the best system that we thought that we could get.”

New features

The campus shuttle service was first introduced in February 2003 when a parking crunch led the University to compromise with graduate students. The shuttle was launched after graduate students agreed to forgo their on-campus daytime parking privileges, Twitty explained in an e-mail, adding that today 78 percent of students live in graduate housing complexes that are served by the shuttle system.

The new system will have three major lines and a campus circulator. The three main lines will run between graduate housing and main campus, while the circulator will focus on transportation on main campus and along Nassau Street and Washington Road.

This represents a significant change from the current shuttle system, in which only the Green Line shuttle, one of three University shuttle lines, services graduate housing.

In addition, there will be an expanded route that will go to the Forrestal Campus. There will also be an expanded shopping route on weekends that will stop at locations on Route 1.

For a detailed diagram of the new shuttle routes, please see the attached images.

“These are things we’ve been working on for a very long time, so we’re excited that we’re finally going to have access on the weekend, and that people who work in Forrestal Campus will have access to their workplaces,” Twitty said.

The Dinky stop will serve as a major transfer hub between the lines and should reduce wait times, Jackson said, noting that all buses from the new fleet will be equipped with a locator and that there will be an e-mail notification system that riders can opt into to be informed of potential problems.

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“The biggest change for graduate students [is the possibility for] transfers from one route to another, depending on their destination,” Jackson said, adding that the shuttle system will also include an “express route” from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Jackson is also currently working with the GSG to increase weekend service so that one vehicle will remain on campus and link campus with the graduate complexes, and a second vehicle will link people to the Nassau Park Boulevard shopping area.

Likewise, the GSG has lobbied for later shuttle service to allow greater flexibility for graduate students.

“The GSG has convinced parking/transportation services to move forward with a modified shuttle system after 9 p.m., which will provide service to most graduate student complexes,” Twitty said.

Butler and Millstone apartments will not be served after 9 p.m., however, Twitty said.

“I think the GSG is concerned about Butler residents’ reactions to the upcoming changes,” Twitty noted.

In response to concerns like these, Jackson explained at the meeting that “this transit system is an ongoing work in progress.”

In September 2009, the system will get a significant overhaul. A new fleet of biodiesel-fueled buses complete with orange roofs, TigerTransit logos and bike racks will begin running in September 2009, Jackson said at the meeting.

TigerTransit will also be complemented by an on-demand system, which will take the place of the existing P-Rides service in January. The new service will operate from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. and will offer rides from campus to graduate housing and to and from Princeton Junction train station.

The service will be quick, Jackson told the GSG. “No one should be waiting more than 10 minutes for a van to transport them somewhere on campus.”

A collaborative conversation

The system introduced in the 10-year Campus Plan was initially met with disgruntled responses from graduate students.

“Several months ago, the University put forth a series of proposed changes to the current shuttle system, and there was a great deal of concern among the GSG that those changes as they were originally conceived did not take into account grad student usage and needs,” Twitty said.

Ensuring that graduate students were adequately served by the shuttle system became a high priority for the GSG last spring, Twitty explained. The GSG formed a Parking and Transportation Committee to address the issues and communicated their concerns to Jackson.

Since then, Twitty said, Jackson and the Parking and Transportation department have been responsive to the concerns.

“We’ve gone through a ton of iterations and changes to the proposed changes over the course of the last few months,” she said. “At this point, given very recent promises made to us by Kim Jackson, the GSG is convinced that graduate students will benefit from the changes.”

The committee created and administered a comprehensive survey of graduate student opinion and put together a report analyzing the results. The committee got responses from 1,078 graduate students, and the results were released on May 7.

The survey found that students “prioritize reliability, efficiency, and continuity (i.e. lack of transfers) in their shuttle system over shuttle frequency and environmental sustainability,” according to the report.

The survey also found that “the potential system proposed in the University’s campus plan elicits a very negative response from graduate students.”

Survey participants said that the changes in transit patterns would make them more likely to drive to work, work from home and attend fewer University social events.

“The results were pretty unambiguous about what graduate students needed and wanted from a shuttle system,” Twitty said. They indicated that graduate students care most about “easy, fast, reliable transportation to and from housing and campus.”

Jackson noted that the survey’s findings prompted her office to reconsider and modify route proposals.

“The committee and I have been in communication through meetings and via e-mail,” Jackson said.

“I am very pleased with the progress we have made to resolve many of the issues and look forward to continuing our dialogue as we move forward,” she added.

Finding a spot

There is some lingering concern about the availability of convenient and consistent parking for graduate students.

As of last month, commuting graduate students had to park in Lot 21 instead of Lot 25. Many feel that Lot 21, which is near Jadwin Gymnasium, is less accessible than Lot 25, which is near the Center for Jewish Life.

Students who have to come back to labs in the middle of the night for their research are also inconvenienced by having to park far away from their buildings.

For graduate students who don’t commute but still have cars, the parking situation has also changed. Whereas in the past, resident graduate students had 20 permits that they could use one at a time to park on Western Way, FitzRandolph Road, Lot 20 and Lot 21, they are now allotted just four permits per year. This decrease represents an attempt to reconcile the interests in providing adequate spots for commuters and allowing residents to park on campus in an emergency, said Hilary Bergsieker GS, a member of the GSG Parking and Transportation Committee.

Some graduate students also took issue with how they are affected by parking regulations.

“Graduate students are intended to teach and work as research staff, they are serving in much the same capacity as other paid staff,” GSG academic affairs chair Kevin Collins GS said. “This raises questions about why graduate students who are being paid by [the University] ... are being treated differently from staff. There is sort of a disconnect between what graduate students do on campus and how they are treated.”

Collins suggested making all parking for staff, faculty and graduate students first-come, first-serve.

Princeton is widely recognized for its undergraduate focus, and this contributes to a perception that graduate students are the first to be impacted by negative changes, Twitty said.

“There’s a broader perception among the graduate student population that we are the last to receive benefits and the first to get them taken away,” she said. “In changing the shuttle system, the graduate students were going to be left behind.”