Don’t @ Me: The Concordia Shuttle Buses Suck
The Shuttle Bus System is Anything but Safe and Convenient
I don’t think I’m being dramatic when I say that I risk my life each time I get on Concordia’s shuttle buses.
After taking the free shuttle bus—which transports students between the Sir George Williams and Loyola campuses—almost every day for a year, I have come to recognize the problems of this service.
Before even stepping onto the bus, students must play a guessing game of when the shuttle will arrive. While there is a schedule available on the Concordia website and application, I can never be sure when the red hunk of a vehicle with the school’s name will roll into its designated spot. “Morning and late-evening departures should be precise,” stated Concordia in an article published in 2020, but as we all know, this is rarely the case.
Sometimes shuttle buses show up within a few minutes of each other, and other times, you’ll find yourself waiting for 30 minutes rain or shine.
Once the bus arrives, your wait isn’t over just yet. There is no worse feeling than watching it pull up on time, only for the driver to walk out, lock the doors and leave it running while a line of students wait anxiously outside. “[Drivers are] not supposed to leave their vehicles unattended for any lengthy period,” said Concordia in the same article. Yet day-after-day, students share this experience.
Finally, students get on the bus. As I grab a seat, I dread the moment when the bus actually begins to move. I always joke that shuttle bus drivers treat traffic rules as optional. It has happened too many times that a driver ignored a stop sign, sped past a red light or honked aggressively at another vehicle. To say that some drivers have road rage is an understatement. Friends of mine have quite literally fallen over because of reckless driving and abrupt stops. On one occasion, the driver stuck his head out of the window to scream at another driver. I heard loud shouting through my earphones and looked up to see what was happening—I feared that the situation might escalate given how aggravated the driver was.
Given that this service is regulated by the administration, I expect there to be more precautions in place to ensure the safety of Concordia students and staff. Unfortunately, the shuttle bus system is just another broken screw in our community that we can only hope will be fixed this semester.
