By Rocio Hernandez
University of Nevada, Reno senior Mimi Premo lives in a house that is more than two miles away from campus. Until this month, she’s had to find different means to get home since she doesn’t own a car. On her walk home at night, she has sometimes felt unsafe.
“I’ve been approached and followed most of the way to either the bus stop or to my street once or twice,” Premo said. “I usually notice and turn onto other streets trying to lose the person following me, or pull out my pepper spray.”
On March 9, Campus Escort announced that it was extending its service range from two miles to three miles after popular demand from student riders and the ASUN senate. According to Campus Escort’s website, they give over 30,000 rides per academic year and might soon be exceeding that average.
To accommodate for the new distance, Coordinator for Student Engagement Chris Partridge said that dispatchers will be promoting the night-time shuttle that runs on the east side of campus. The shuttle serves popular locations on campus such as Lombardi Recreation Center, the residence halls, and the Joe Crowley as well as The Highlands.
“That’s another big step that we are taking to try and decrease the wait time, because that takes a lot of the calls from the dispatcher,” Partridge said. “Students can go outside and get on that shuttle without having to call for a ride, and the dispatcher can assign a van to all the different calls that are not going to those really popular locations.”
The number of van drivers is also at an all-time high. There are 32 student employees working weekly and because the hours of service have switched from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., they are able to staff more vans per night.
Junior Joe Rico thinks the move to the three-mile radius will only make the wait time longer. He was a loyal user until his wait time increased from 30 to 40 minutes. Rico said at that point, he’d rather ride his bike than wait for more than half an hour for their van.
According to Campus Escort’s website, the number of people requesting rides has been increasing for the past five years. Rico thinks that Campus Escort was not prepared for the growth the school has seen in recent years. He doesn’t think it’s wise for another mile to be added right now.
“Right now, as it is, I feel that [Campus Escort] is useless because the wait is so long every single time, so extending the radius another mile is just going to increase the wait time, which is already way too long,” Rico said.
According to Partridge, the wait will not be longer because of the new van scheduled to come later this month that was purchased with ASUN funds.
Student Director of Public Relations for Campus Escort Brian Fidelibus said that the new range is still in a trial phase. They need to make sure that they have enough staff and resources to meet the demand once it becomes popular among the students before they can decide if it will be a permanent change for the fall semester.
“We haven’t had much use of the three-mile radius yet, I just think a few calls here and there,” Fidelibus said. “I still think the word is getting out about it.”
Premo hopes that Campus Escort will be available to continue to give her and others that live more than two miles away from campus rides in the future.
“I know that the purpose of the service is to ensure safe rides home to students residents,” Premo said. “To expand the radius, only to cut it back the following semester seems a bit disingenuous.”
Rocio Hernandez can be reached at amosher@sagebrush.unr.edu
