The Loyola version of Tulane’s “Safe Ride” program will be up and running on the first weekend of the spring semester.
Last summer, SGA began investigating joining with Tulane University’s “Safe Ride” program, a shuttle that buses students throughout the Uptown area, downtown and back to Tulane for a small fee.
Loyola’s participation in the program had been advertised throughout Summer Orientation.
One week before the fall semester began, the expected partnership was called off, and it wasfinally completely rejected by Tulane at the end of October.
“We are not looking at all to pursue a cooperation with Tulane,” Nick Poche´, SafeRide committee chairperson, said. He is a SGA Arts and Sciences representative, and a psychology and drama communications senior.
The committee of fifteen students that had been working towards the partnership with Tulane switched gears to establish an independent Loyola shuttle service. The committee is overseen by Chris Cameron, Danna Center and student activities director.
The shuttle is expected to run Friday and Saturday nights from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. and cover an expanded Uptown route. In the future, it may go to a single location in the downtown area.
The exact routes, times and stops, however, are yet to be determined. The service will be covered by student fees. No fare will be charged.
Eventually, if funding is available, the committee hopes to be able to have the shuttle running throughout downtown, and not only to one location.
Precipitating factors, such as the latest robberies along St. Charles Avenue and the recent death of freshman Geoffrey Coyne, who was hit by a car while walking in a rain-soaked street, have played a large part in the committee’s determination to create this program.
Poche said he hopes that they will be building a program to expand. In the future, the shuttle may run during the week, run for longer hours and have a better established downtown route.
Just before the beginning of the fall semester, Loyola and Tulane’s lawyers had reached an agreement about the Safe Ride contract, Poche said.
Then the Tulane student government decided it was not sure if it wanted to bring Loyola in on the program. Tulane’s contract with the bus company had a two-month probationary period, and Tulane offered to consider if it was beneficial to them to bring Loyola in and make a decision before the period was up, Poche said.
At the time, Loyola didn’t have the money for its own shuttle and the service would have been very limited, he said. Loyola’s SGA decided that the program would be worth the wait.
But then legal negotiations broke down with Tulane, and the partnership was nixed, Poche said.
“The most disappointing thing for me is that I was really looking forward to this setting a precedent for the two universities to work together,” Poche said.
