‘Uber’ Impact on Le Moyne Shuttle Services
More stories from Emma Gutchess
With the arrival of transportation-booking services like Uber and Lyft in Central
New York this summer, Le Moyne’s transportation service might see less demand
this year.
Director of Campus Life and Leadership, John Haley, states his interest in how
students will react and use Uber and Lyft.
“Depending on the demand students place on Uber will certainly gauge the type of
transportation we provide on campus for different events,” Haley stated.
Currently, Campus Life provides free shuttle services for students and guests going
to destinations such as Walmart, Target, and Wegmans. Blue Chip Shuttles depart
from Grewen Hall on the hour every Wednesday night from 6pm to 10pm and every
Sunday afternoon from 1pm to 7pm.
“Those shuttles were pretty well used in the past,” stated Haley. “So we are going to
continue to use those shuttles.”
The campus used to provide Friday and Saturday night shuttles transporting
students from outside the Performing Arts Center to Downtown Armory Square and
Destiny USA from 6pm to 1am. According to Haley, this 24-passenger Suburban
shuttle service had less of a demand in comparison to the Blue Chip shuttles.
“We didn’t get a lot of riders to use this service. We would only get around 20 or 30
people a night to use it,” Haley said. “ It ended up costing us a lot of money so we
need to come up with a new way to fix that. My guess is that students are already
using, and will continue to use, Uber and Lyft anyhow.”
This year, Le Moyne will not be providing transportation services on Friday nights,
nor will they be going to Downtown Armory Square. According to Campus life, First
Student School Bus will run every Saturday to Destiny USA from 6pm to midnight
from Grewen Hall.
Haley is also looking into providing transportation for small groups of people that do not have access to Uber or Lyft, but want to go out and do activities that may not be listed in Le Moyne’s shuttle destinations.
“I would really like to have money available for students who want to do something
on their own. If a student comes to me and wants to go to a specific event in the area
with a group of people, I would like to be able to fund that for them,” stated Haley.
“What we really want to do is to get students to come up with their own
programming for smaller groups.”