The Tufts weekend shuttle service to Harvard, which was announced last semester to compensate for the four?month?long halt in Red Line subway services from Alewife Station to Harvard Square, will continue through the end of the semester due to its popularity, Tufts Administrative Services announced earlier this month.
Even though weekend service on the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) Red Line between Alewife Station and Harvard Square reopened on March 10, the shuttle service's popularity this semester warranted its continuation, at least through the end of this academic year, Vice President for Operations Dick Reynolds said.
"I think we felt that the students had gotten used to it so we didn't want to just drop it in the middle of the semester," Reynolds said.
The shuttle runs from the Mayer Campus Center to Porter and Harvard Squares.
Before Tufts administrators decide to continue the shuttle next fall, Reynolds said that Operations must make sure that students need the service and that there are enough funds in the Operations budget to sustain it.
In the final weekends of the school year, Reynolds said he will gauge student interest in continuing the service vis?a?vis the number of riders.
"There are only eight weekends left," he said. "The whole thing is up in the air."
Although only 800 riders used the bus in the first weekend since the T reopened, the two?day period occurred when students were in the midst of completing midterms and getting ready to leave campus for Spring Break, which may have skewed the regular number of riders, Support Services Manager Sheila Chisholm said.
"We have committed to continuing the shuttle through the end of the year on the weekends. We'll just decide if it's one or two buses depending on the ridership," Reynolds said. "If, in fact, ridership falls off then that'll tell us we needed it when we needed it, but that it isn't really necessary in the future."
While service north of the MBTA Harvard Square station was closed, between 1,200 to 1,500 people used the shuttle service each weekend, with the Tufts community making 14,858 total trips either from Tufts to Harvard or Harvard to Tufts between the weekends of Nov. 5 and Feb. 18, according to Reynolds.
"[The shuttle] is a convenient, cheap, fast and easy way to get off?campus and be somewhere interesting," Jessica Serrino, a freshman and co?chair of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate Services Committee, said. "People should get to know the area in which they live, and the shuttle augments that."
To continue the free transportation service through this semester, Reynolds said he had used funds from the Operations Division budget that wouldn't affect the department's other projects.
Depending on how many riders use the bus in the remainder of the school year, administrators will decide whether or not to continue the service next year, Reynolds said, especially in light of proposed service cuts that would affect the Tufts Medford/Somerville campus.
"The MBTA is talking about cutting bus lines and the 96 bus, so we thought we'd run it out through the end of the year, see what happens with the scheduling changes and rethink it over the summer," Reynolds said. "No promises that it'll be in place come the fall because everything is still running pretty well and it's an extra expense, but it'll give us a chance to think about it."
The Senate Services Committee has also been active in attempting to reintroduce the Boston bus shuttle to the Medford campus.
"I think that part of what our education is, or at least should be, is exposing students to the local Cambridge/Boston area," Serrino said. "Students really seem to be using the service, so it should be there for them."
"I would hope that they also look into adding additional destinations as well," she added. "Tufts students go more places than just Harvard Square and Porter, and it would be nice if they could extend outreach."
