Poughkeepsie bus line rolls onto VC campus

Last summer, the City of Poughkeepsie Transit System made several changes to two of its bus lines as part of an agreement with Vassar College that will lower the cost and increase the availability of off-campus transportation.

The Shopper's Special Bus Line will now include a stop on campus, and both the Shopper's Special and the Main Street Bus Lines will be free for students and employees with a Vassar College Identification Card. Each $1.50 fare will be subsidized by President Catharine Bond Hill's Office until at least the end of the fall semester, at which point she will consider extending the funding through to next semester.

The transition from Leprechaun Lines, the company that provided the old weekday shuttle service, to the Shopper's Special and Main Street Bus Lines has several benefits according to Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs Jeffrey Kosmacher. The Leprechaun Lines shuttle only ran from around 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and charged the College for gasoline, personnel and maintenance. The new bus lines have a longer schedule, and those costs are already covered by the city transit system's budget. "As we like to say, we got out of the bus business," said Kosmacher, adding, "this change enables us to support students and employees who need to get around the city without having to rely on cars or taxi cabs in a cheap and easy way."

This project was largely handled by the Campus Community Advisory Committee (CCAC), of which Kosmacher is also co-chair. The Vassar Student Association (VSA) also played an important role in this project. In 2010, the Executive Board wrote a letter to Poughkeepsie Mayor John Tkazyik supporting change to the city bus route. "It was certainly an important extra message because it wasn't coming from the administration. Students were saying that they wanted the new route, and I think that the mayor took notice when he received that letter," noted Kosmacher.

Students going downtown can either catch the Shopper's Special bus behind Jewett House, or the Main Street bus by the Raymond and Fulton Avenues intersection. Students going east can either catch the Shopper's Special bus by the Raymond and Fulton Avenues intersection, or the Main Street bus at the corner of Main Street and Raymond Avenue. The Shopper's Special line will operate weekdays only from around 10:05 a.m. to 5:05 p.m., and the Main Street bus will operate weekdays from around 6:25 a.m. to around 5:35 p.m., and on Saturday from around 6:25 a.m. to around 2:25 p.m.

Between these two new bus lines, students can commute to the Poughkeepsie Middle School and High School, the Transit System Bus Hub, the Poughkeepsie Train Station and the Walkway Over the Hudson entrance. They also stop near K-Mart and Stop and Shop, a destination that was previously unavailable to students who used the old weekday shuttle. "It is a new relationship being offered to the College to help our students get into the downtown Poughkeepsie area, get to fieldwork programs in and around the city area, and, last but not least, provide a source of transportation to the train system and other bus systems throughout the greater Poughkeepsie area," commented Vassar's Transportation Director Dennis Cody in an emailed statement. To access the Galleria by way of public transportation, students can either pay a 30-cent transfer fee at the bus hub onto the Galleria bus line, or wait until the weekend for the shuttle bus funded by the VSA. Each bus line includes other stops; students can visit neighbors.vassar.edu, or get a red pamphlet from Campus Activities (located in the College Center) for a full list and an exact schedule.

The weekend shuttle funded by the VSA will continue this year with only slight changes. "We've added a stop at Barnes and Noble, and changed another stop to become closer to the Walkway over the Hudson," explained VSA Vice President for Operations Jenna Konstantine '13. Unlike last year, this year's VSA shuttle will stop in the North Lot, not in front of Main. Service begins on Sept. 17. Due to rising costs, the VSA weekend shuttle will only run for four hours on Saturdays and Sundays this semester. According to Konstantine, the VSA is considering further consolidation next semester by extending Saturday hours and cutting Sunday hours to save money. "Leprechaun Bus Lines keeps really detailed stats, which showed us that people overwhelmingly use the shuttle more on Saturdays than Sundays," wrote Konstantine in an emailed statement. This change will reduce costs by roughly 20 percent from $1040 per weekend to $827 and possibly help the VSA fund other events and programs.