A June trial run of the shuttle service that ferried students to the San Francisco and San Jose airports saw nearly 400 passengers, a number high enough to keep supporters of the program optimistic about its return for Thanksgiving break. However, others saw its run at about 20 percent capacity as evidence that the cost of the service outweighs its usefulness.

Originally a campaign promise made by ASSU executives Hershey Avula ‘08 and Mondaire Jones ‘09, the airport shuttle program was sponsored by the Undergraduate Senate and the Graduate Student Council (GSC).

The program easily passed in the Senate, with members voting 14-1 in May to provide $7,000 for the program, but GSC members allocated only $3,500 — half of what was expected — for the service. While funding for this year’s program was drawn from ASSU and GSC general reserve fees, supporters hope to fund the shuttle service with special fees by next spring.

The Trial Run

According to a spreadsheet of students who bought tickets for the shuttles online, only 374 seats were purchased out of a possible 1,980 seats in 44 shuttles. Jones, who authored the bill, said he expects the number of users to increase “exponentially.”

“What happened this past quarter was that though several hundred students decided to use the service, a quarter of the student population was automatically ineligible because seniors were staying for graduation,” Jones said. “Graduate students and a large number of undergraduates stay on campus for the summer as well.”

“Thanksgiving holiday is going to be very different,” he added. “There will be more students looking to use the program, and the window of time for vacation is narrower.”

Avula said that the early date of the pilot program was scheduled in part to allow students more time to decide if they considered the airport shuttle a valuable service.

“We also want students to know that we’re working for them,” he added. “We’re all about getting things done and getting results as quickly as possible.”

Avula added that the total number of students using the service was a better indicator of the program’s success than the fullness of the shuttles.

“Our goal was to have about 300 riders, which we thought would validate the shuttle service,” he said. “We were pretty pleased with the results. The point at which we probably would have cut the program would have been if we’d gotten 200 riders or fewer. Since there were closer to 400, there’s a much bigger likelihood that the program will be back for Thanksgiving.”

Thanksgiving Runs

Funding for the Thanksgiving version of the shuttle service, however, will be put to another vote in both the Senate and the GSC — and not without a few adjustments.

Though Avula and Jones said that student response to the airport shuttles was generally positive, they also noted that they received complaints about shuttle drivers who whizzed past the stop at Tresidder Union or cut it close in rush hour traffic.

“We’re working with Parking and Transportation Services, which subcontracted the company that provided the shuttle, to provide refunds for at least the shuttle ticket and hopefully for the cost of the taxi or shuttle that students had to order to get to the airport,” Avula said. “It’s something we’re very concerned about.”

Senator Jonathan Kass ‘10 said he will continue to support the shuttle.

“The ASSU has not met since the shuttle service debuted as it has been summer, so we have not discussed it as a group other than through email,” he said in an email to The Daily. “I can’t guarantee what others will do, and this service at the moment relies on many factors like how the Senate and the GSC will vote in the fall, but I will certainly be supporting this service again for Thanksgiving break.”

Avula and Jones said that organizers had hoped to use smaller shuttles with fewer seats, but that they had been booked. More important than capacity, they said, was providing a valuable service to students.

“This was among the initiatives we have planned to reduce the cost of living for students,” Jones said. “There were some who felt as though the airport shuttle service might be a waste of money in that the price we pay to fund the service won’t be made up through the $5 service charge. My response is that the service is supposed to be just that, a service, and we’re not trying to make money off this program in any way.”

In addition, he pointed to the $320,000 remaining in the general fee reserve fund.

“The amount of money we spent relative to what’s been sitting in the reserve is somewhat inconsequential,” he said. “The point was to determine whether or not this thing was going to be worth bringing back in the fall, and whether it was something students were genuinely interested in.”

Debate Stirs

Other senators, however, were less sanguine.

Senator Jose Benchimol ‘08, the only dissenting vote on the initial shuttle bill, said in an email to The Daily that he had argued against the shuttle program as one that was too expensive and would incur a “huge loss.”

“The ASSU should not have as its goal to be profitable, but to attend [to] students’ needs,” he said. “So are we attending to their needs when we run a project that results in losses of approximately $9,000 — or the equivalent of paying $30 per user?”

He said he had also been concerned about what he saw as a failure to determine procedures for how to evaluate the success or failure of the program.

“I believe that this year’s results were a reflection of the management of the program and mainly the lack of demand for this service,” he said. “People have their ways of getting to the airport. Had we charged nothing I believe the usage would be similar. Furthermore, 20 percent capacity is incredibly low — not just for me but for Hershey and Mondaire as well, at least before the program took place. They’d said in voting that they were expecting at least 50 percent capacity, but we had several buses with five or fewer people.”

Senator Stuart Baimel ‘09, who voted in support of the shuttle bill, said he was concerned that the amount of demonstrated student interest in the pilot program would not be enough to justify what he characterized as the increasing cost of the shuttle service to the Senate’s reserve funds, which he said were supposed to be used as a buffer.

“To authorize the program the first time, we needed to draw a reasonably large sum from the ASSU reserves,” he said. “To fund it again, we’ll have to get more money, and I don’t see the GSC chipping in. So we’ll have to use these funds to pay for this program for Thanksgiving, winter and spring, since it won’t be up for special fees until then.”

Baimel said that the pilot program showed that the cost was too high to continue with unless an alternative source of funding could be found.

“We can spend money from our reserve accounts, but if we fund this program for the entire year, we won’t have much money for anything else,” he said. “I think the 18.9 percent usage rate was a little low. I don’t see people using [the shuttles] more than they do now, and while 400 students is substantial, it won’t be for that kind of money.”

While Baimel admitted that it would be unlikely for further funding to the shuttle program to be voted down, he suggested several changes that could be made.

“Since this program is so closely associated with the ASSU executives, I think they should contribute money out of their own accounts, even if it’s just symbolic,” he said. “That would go a long way to showing that they’re committed to it. We’re also going to have to figure out how to publicize this campaign.”

Benchimol, however, was less forgiving.

“I think we should learn the lesson that this pilot taught us and stop it for the following quarters,” he said. “Cheap transportation will continue to be provided for the 374 riders via the Caltrain and other public transportation. It might take 30 to 45 minutes more, but would be without a doubt a better option to students who are essentially paying about 30 dollars per user of the ASSU shuttle.”