The UConn Transit Advisory Committee revealed plans to subsidize Uber rides for students possibly as soon as spring semester in a meeting in early October.
According to Andy Kelly, the associate director of logistics at the University of Connecticut, this arrangement is meant to supplement the campus shuttle service’s off hours.
“In doing that, the intent would be to subsidize those rides,” Kelly said. “There’s a lot of different ways you can divvy that up, and several different universities have tried different ways. The university is working on a more comprehensive agreement with Uber… [USG] is putting up a very large sum of money to contribute to the subsidizing of rides, and we would also contribute to that pot of money.”
“For instance, we could say, okay, we’ll contribute $8 per ride for up to five rides,” he said. “Or we could say, all right, you have $30 this semester. Spend it as you wish. Or some combination of that in order to help out with the gaps in our current shuttle coverage.”
HuskyGO, UConn’s on-campus shuttle service, has been provided and operated by the Windham Region Transit District (WRTD) since fall 2020.
HuskyGO is free for students as well as the general public, providing service to downtown Storrs as well as throughout the UConn campus. The service is partially funded by undergraduate students through their tuition. Every undergrad is charged a fee of $106 for every semester that they attend UConn, according to information provided by the office of the bursar.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, the WRTD has been putting up with a shortage of bus drivers according to Corrie Washington, administrator of the WRTD.
“Everyone’s hurting for operators,” Washington said. “It’s an industry problem. It’s not just isolated to us.”
According to a report put out by the American Public Transportation Association this year, the main reasons for the shortage of transit workers include an aging workforce with a high retirement rate, high competition for workers, and concerns about scheduling as well as compensation leading workers to quit.
As a result of the driver shortage, the WRTD has undertaken measures such as cutting the operating hours of some bus lines and combining other lines altogether. For example, shuttle services used to end at midnight on weekdays and 1am on Fridays and Saturdays. Now these services end at 10:30pm on weekdays, 10pm on Friday, and 10:30pm on Saturday as of March 17, 2024, according to The Daily Campus.
The red and silver bus lines were combined indefinitely, according to UConn’s transportation services website.
“We have to make structural adjustments without leaving students or community members reeling from the impact,” Washington said.
UConn students have felt the impact despite WRTD’s best efforts, however.
In October 2024, dissatisfaction with the HuskyGO shuttle service culminated in the creation of a petition calling for UConn to take action and improve the service.
Because of the problems presented by WRTD due to the driver shortage, a rideshare option might help supplement transportation services in the area.
Most restaurants, bars and shops are far from campus and issues with bus service and parking make it difficult to access these places, according to Cameron Costa, chief of staff at Undergraduate Student Government.
“We’ve been wanting to explore corporate partnerships as an idea,” Costa said. “And we want to make existing options [for transit] a little more affordable.”
Photo by Blake Skyes, Grab Photographer.
USG initiated the conversation with Kelly about bringing a subsidized rideshare program to UConn over the summer, according to Costa.
Initial discussions around the plan centered around looking at rideshare programs at other universities and trying to figure out whether or not UConn would be better served by Lyft or Uber.
“UChicago was one of the schools we reached out to,” Costa said.
UChicago partnered with the technology company Via to provide their student body with an exclusive rideshare program. The program offers students rides seven days a week from 5 p.m. to 4 a.m. and serves a designated campus service area, according to a page about the program on UChicago’s website.
“Analyzing the budget available, we are unsure what specific contributions will look like, but it will come from the existing budget. No increase in fees,” Costa said. “In general, USG is looking to find new transportation options, and if we can work out this deal it would be for a short term and a long-term solution.”
USG has completed their end of the deal and is now waiting on the department of procurement for an update, according to Costa.
“It seems like it’s right on the pretty near horizon, and we might have it in place for next semester,” said Kelly. “If not next semester, we would not hold off to the fall semester. “As soon as we can implement it, we would. If that’s the middle of this next semester then that’s what we’re going to do.”