Safety Walk May Cease Operation

Harvard's student-run Safety Walk program may be discontinued next week because of insufficient funding and a dearth of volunteers, its director said yesterday.

For three years, the night-time escort service has provided teams of volunteers to accompany students walking alone from one campus location to another.

But it hasn't gotten off the ground yet this year, and if moves aren't made soon the prognosis for the service isn't good.

"If [SafetyWalk] is not up and running within a week, it will never be," Director Marco B. Simons '97 said in a telephone interview yesterday."

Simons said student use of Safety Walk has diminished over the past few years, a fact which led to drastic budget cuts for the program this year.

He said there were many nights last year the service did not receive a single call.

SafetyWalk had been funded by a Faculty of Arts and Sciences [FAS] grant that was matched by a grant from the Harvard police department. Last year the joint funding came to $6,000.

When FAS cost-cutting efforts struck SafetyWalk from the College's budget this year, the police department followed suit. Recently, Simons said, FAS came through with $500, which the police then matched.

Simons called this sum insufficient, citing the $900 SafetyWalk spends yearly on phone calls alone.

Many students interviewed yesterday said they felt that the disappearance of the program would go largely unnoticed.

"I don't use SafetyWalk," said Vanessa Z. Johnson '97, a Cabot resident. "I only know one person who has used it."

"I don't know anyone who's ever used or worked for SafetyWalk," Currier House Committee President Zachary T. Buchwald '96 said. "If you're looking at degrees of safety, it's safer to be in a car."

SafetyWalk was originally intended to supplement Harvard's vehicular escort service, said Simons.

The Harvard Evening Van Shuttle Service is a popular alternative to SafetyWalk, according to Manager of Passenger Transport Services Carl A. Tempesta. The van service replaced the escort service which was run by Harvard Police through last spring.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Tempesta said last year the escort service carried 24,807 students, almost half of whom were undergraduates.

Simons says that even if he had full funding he wouldn't have the resources to continue the program: he has only half the number of student volunteers he would need to fill SafetyWalk's schedule, and needs 35 to 40 more.

Without a full staff and funding available for safety training, Simons said the program could do more harm than good.

"At this point it is a safety risk to have our walkers out on the streets at three a.m.," he said.

The Evening Shuttle Van Service program will drive students to any location on Harvard's Cambridge and Allston campuses between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. The service accepts calls until 2:45 a.m. at 495-0400.