Shuttle Bus Expands To Weekend Afternoons

In a limited concession to a recent request by the Undergraduate Council, Harvard College has extended the shuttle bus's weekend hours, but has not yet granted the 24-hour service sought by the council.

Under the new plan, shuttle service begins at 11:45 a.m., instead of at 4:30 p.m., on Saturdays and Sundays. The College extended the shuttle's weekend hours last year on an experimental basis and this year decided to make the change permanent.

While University officials said the College had no plans to increase shuttle service any further, council members said the current schedule change was not good enough.

"We want all-night service," said Evan B. Rauch '91, last year's council secretary. "For the weekend, it's just convenience. But at nighttime, we're concerned that someone might be raped on their way back to the Quad."

"Speaking as someone who lives in the Quad," Rauch said, "there's no real reason for afternoon service, unless you're a real fanatical student."

The council helped the College fund the experimental program last year, hoping that the College would eventually pay for a continual twenty-four hour service. Rauch said the council funded half of the program believing that "maybe [it would] shame them into conceding."

But college officials said yesterday that any change in the schedule would depend on budgetary constraints.

"The experiment was just to see what the increase in ridership would be," said a spokesperson from the Financial Office for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences who asked not to be identified. "We were under no obligation to continue this service this fall. Its continuation is all up to budget decisions."