Long Beach City College’s bus shuttles are not perfect. Even though they are a great benefit to students who have classes on both campuses throughout the day, the shuttle program has its areas where improvement is needed.
There are only two buses to accommodate a campus of more than 24,000 students and on top of that students have to wait 30 minutes for each bus to arrive.
The bus shuttles, also known as the Viking Voyager, operate daily to bring students from the LAC to the PCC and vice versa.
The shuttles also operate between Veterans Memorial Stadium and the northside of LAC.
The buses are small and can get filled up pretty quickly making the commute irritating for students traveling between campuses.
Imagine getting out of class at PCC and rushing to the shuttle stop for your next class at LAC but you cannot get on the bus because it is full.
But capacity is not the only issue students have with the bus shuttle program, there is also the waiting period.
It should not take 30 minutes for the shuttle to arrive when they are only going to the other campus and back.
The waiting period alone puts students in jeopardy of being late to the class.
The best way to fix this problem would be to get more buses to make the waiting period shorter.
Long waiting periods and crowded buses don’t make for a happy LBCC student. Having to deal with these hassles everyday are frustrating and discourages the students from using this service which is paid for with our student fees.
The Student Union funds the bus shuttle program, so when funds are low there is little they can do.
Either drivers get low paychecks and we, the students, get more buses for more student capacity and shorter waits or the bus program stays as how it is leaving unhappy students paying for something they don’t want to use.
The Student Union should make it a priority to have more funds available for the bus shuttle program.
Once those funds are available, the bus shuttle program operators should really invest it into fixing the problems at hand.
Having the program is a good asset to the school but with so many problems needing to be fixed students won’t see the use of using while paying for the shuttles in their student fees.
While instead students will look for more efficient and possibly more expensive ways to get to either campus on time.