In response to the recent spike in concerns regarding transportation, FUSA Senate has developed an ad hoc Committee to respond to students needs by researching the issues and creating effective change here on campus (and anywhere else you may need to go).
Here to tell you more about the committee is Vice Chair of Senate, and Chair of the Transportation Committee Mary Crowley ’09.
It’s no secret: The transportation system at Fairfield is severely lacking.
Although the StagBus that speeds around campus is a lifesaver for all you poor souls that live in Dolan, if you’re looking to get anywhere off-campus without putting at least two or three hours of your time aside, you’re simply out of luck.
To make matters worse, next year, neither the freshmen nor the sophomores are going to have cars on campus. And the accident on Sept. 28, 2008 [when sophomore Jack Cleverly was hit by a student drunken driver on Fairfield Beach Road] only intensifies the problem, as it exhibits the fact that Fairfield’s transportation issues seep into the night for both underclassmen and upperclassmen.
Not to mention that if you’re environmentally friendly in any degree (or have taken MG101 from Prof. Cavanaugh and you realize that our world has zilch amount of oil left), the gas prices in our country are more than alarming.
In lieu of all these problems, the FUSA Senate has formed a transportation committee, and as chair of this committee, I would like to give some brief updates as to what we are planning to discuss with the administration, and what we are hoping to instate at Fairfield.
Our primary focus is off-campus transportation, and we want to create an off-campus shuttle system that addresses faculty, underclassmen and beach students. It is our hope to make this a multi-van/bus system, so each shuttle stop will be more specified, and the loop each shuttle runs will be more time-efficient.
We also understand the hassle revolved around the Fairfield train station, both in terms of parking and in getting to and fro, so we are trying to refine a plan that will be accessible to faculty and students, especially students with internships. Instating a Safe-Ride program is at the top of our priority list-s omething must be done sooner rather than later.
It is our hope for all of these ideas to be instated by next semester, because we feel that the transportation problem is an extremely urgent matter. But I will ask you two things: first, please e-mail senatesuggestions@stagweb.fairfield.edu for any ideas or comments that you have regarding this issue.
Secondly, at the end of this month, we will be sending out a survey to all students regarding transportation. Please, please, be sure that you fill out the survey, because we need to present statistics to the administration to prove we need something new to help us with transportation. Your survey means more than you think, and we need as many students’ input as possible.
With your help, it is our goal that by next semester, the griping and complaining about transportation at Fairfield will be a thing of the past.
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