Satire
This university has one of the best shuttle systems I have ever seen, better than the MTA — and that is coming from a New Yorker.
Unlike regular transportation systems, the university shuttles allow students to learn important life skills.
The shuttle teaches you patience. If it’s late at night and you need a ride to your dorm, the university is sure to have a golf cart that sits at your destination all night but never comes back to the main campus. If you are lucky, the shuttle will meet you at your destination but unfortunately, they will not offer you a ride back to campus.
The shuttle teaches you how to mingle. Walk past the library stop and see a group of students waiting to be picked up. If you are in that group, chatter often revolves around who has been waiting the longest and when the shuttle is supposed to come according to the schedule. For people who don’t know how to operate the interactive schedule, someone at the stop will be willing to show you how to navigate it. This is an effective way to make friends if you’re looking to expand your group.
The shuttle teaches you about labor relations. Even the drivers are unaware of what the schedules are, but collective confusion is good for morale. Students are left waiting for shuttles to take them off campus, resulting in discovering new parts of West Haven, which is a completely safe place to be late at night, on their walks to their destinations. Collective confusion can also be an opportunity to brush up on speed-walking skills. With efficient speed walking, you can make the hour-long walk from the main campus to the West Haven train station 40 minutes long. With enough travel, you could have the speed needed to take home gold this summer in Paris.
The shuttle teaches students problem-solving skills and the school’s interactive schedule is especially good for that.
An easy solution would be putting in place a system where shuttles come and go at a specific time interval. Apologies to those who enjoy the waiting game. Putting the system in place also would call the university to update the interactive schedule. The list of shuttles available to students could be solidified and placed on the website where it can be easily accessed. During times of high travel, like breaks, it would be efficient to have shuttles and courtesy vans running more frequently. But that would make too much sense for this university to implement.
Providing security personnel with schedule information would also minimize the confusion. It’s less than comforting to ask the security guard when a shuttle is coming and realize they have as little of a clue as you do.
The university could have an efficient shuttle system, but that would take away the important life lessons you learn with the current system. I say we keep it in the perfect way that it is now.