Written by: Sucheta Desai

Bentley’s Shuttle Service has always been a hot topic, both for its merits, as well as for its faults.

In the past,  some of the most common complaints about the Harvard Square Shuttle were that the shuttle would either arrive early or late, and if it arrived early, it didn’t wait until the scheduled time of departure to leave. Also, around peak times, especially on weekends and in the evenings, the shuttle used to get filled up very quickly. This would leave students stranded, waiting for the next one, which would arrive anywhere from 30–60 minutes later.
This year, solutions to the problems stated above were found and implemented by using bigger busses to shuttle students to and from Harvard Square.

The latest issue has been transportation to North Campus. With our Harvard Shuttle now running into the wee hours of the morning, with the last one arriving at Bentley at 3:30 a.m., many students wonder why the campus loop can’t run longer as well, for as it stands, it stops at midnight on the weekends. It also becomes an issue of safety and security when you have North Campus residents, who may be intoxicated, trying to find a way to get back home after their weekend festivities on the main campus. An SGA survey done with the North Campus RHA in the fall highlighted the demand for a late-night shuttle service on the weekend.

SGA Vice President for Student Affairs Chris Hayes, along with senators Eric Kronlund and Maggy Reynolds, has been working on this issue with Paul Stanish from Student Life, searching for a permanent solution. They have been putting a lot of time and effort into finding a way to fix this problem, and an answer may be just around the corner. Two main options are currently being looked into:1.) having the Harvard Shuttle stop at North Campus once the Campus Loop stops running on Friday and Saturday nights, as its first stop on the way into Harvard, or 2.) having the Campus Loop run later until 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. This second choice  would mean that on Saturdays and Sundays the Shuttle Service would not start until 3 p.m., potentially inconveniencing students who would like to use the shuttle to get to the library to study or to Seasons for brunch.

While one option has not been chosen over the other yet, the student body will be able to hear a favorable answer from SGA and administration very shortly.