As of Sept. 16, the Campus Connector to and from Langley will have increased service. Nine new departures times are available on the Abbotsford to Langley route and eight new departures are available on the Langley to Abbotsford route.
To do this, the Student Union Society (SUS) has added an additional 56-seat capacity school bus to the Langley shuttle bus route.
Demand for increased campus connection is growing yearly. Last fall, school buses replaced six of the traditional 20-person shuttle buses on the Langley Campus Connector route.
Tripat Sandhu, SUS president, said that SUS had seen an increase in wait times for shuttles at the beginning of the fall semester.
“Each year SUS has learned that there seems to be a high influx of students using the shuttle services in the first two to three weeks of school,” Sandhu said over email. “This typically occurs as students are becoming adjusted to schedules and classrooms as well as buying school materials.”
“This Fall 2019 semester was even more unique, as we saw an immensely higher use of the shuttle system from students, which resulted in larger lineups for shuttle use.”
The new shuttle departures adds 260 additional hours of service each month. Tripat said that SUS would continue to monitor the situation and respond accordingly to ensure that student transportation needs are met.
All of the new departures are with a school bus that does not have wheelchair access. Last year, the SUS press release stated that lack of accessibility was one of the reasons why SUS had hesitated to replace the smaller capacity shuttles with the larger capacity school buses.
To ride the Campus Connector, students need to have paid their student fees and then received their U-Pass from SUS. Swiping a student ID through a card reader on each bus allows one to board the Campus Connector.
