The Phantom of the Old Westbury Shuttle Bus

You might be wondering how to plan out your college experience to make your life run smoothly. Certain subjects always come to mind— meal-prep, financial delegations, and putting in time to study and complete assignments, but one coordinate every student needs to keep in mind is transportation. 

SUNY Old Westbury offers a transportation system called the OW Shuttle Bus. But the question of the hour never evades us – WHERE is it? Today, we’ll be going into the capricious nature of The Phantom of the Old Westbury Shuttle Bus.

Students, more than ever, are outraged and impatient when it comes to transportation. With the impending colder temperatures students are demanding that the schedule be accurate. Waiting for the shuttle for extended periods of time, especially as the weather becomes more troubling, is a major concern. 

The On-campus shuttle, that circulates the campus, has been seen to be more “reliable” in recent times. Staff and students are able to circulate to Woodlands, NAB, Student Union, Academic Village and Bus Stop A. This shuttle schedule has had minimal complaints since its institution this semester. Unfortunately, however, this shuttle route is not offered on weekends. This is reasonable for commuters but it definitely raises concerns for dorming students looking to engage in the world outside of campus on their days off of school. 

The Off-Campus evening schedule Shuttle Route, in our experience, is unpredictable, unreliable, and unstable. Some drivers have even tried to ID students to make sure they were students or staff of the Campus. Students grocery trips and off-campus errands or activities become almost impossible to make in a timely manner. 

The Weekend-Campus shuttle is the biggest offender of these three, along with the off-campus shuttle. In our experience, both of these schedules are fickle and unpredictable. Students have proclaimed that they have to go 30 minutes to a whole hour before the bus arrives and sometimes they’re on a small window of time to make it or not. When following the school website, the bus is sometimes a no-show at the posted times.

The shuttle bus tracker app is “Transloc”, and this application is not exclusive to Old Westbury bus routes. On the Google Play store, this app has poor reviews for poor interface, inaccurate schedules, and drivers not following the schedules posted on and off the app. Old Westbury decided to use this app despite its 2.8 out of 5 rating. Students have complained that the app doesn’t work. When contacting the app’s service number, they claim that depending on your phone service plan, phone type, and which hall you’re placed in, the app’s ability to work could be affected. However, this isn’t the case as students with Android, Apple and varied phone service providers all experience the same thing; technical issues. 

Many students who have made statements on the subject chose to remain anonymous, and we shall follow their wishes.

Over the summer, one female student, a senior, remained on Campus to complete summer classes and has continued this fall.  This student has been at Old Westbury since her freshman year. She is currently a resident of Hall 3 and is studying media and communication. She didn’t use the Shuttle too often until her senior year. Prior, they used to have friends or a relative drive them. The senior said“The summer wasn’t that bad. This Fall semester is pretty bad. Horrible. I miss when the campus was empty.” 

As a student who once received assistance from active relatives and friends, she had more to say on the shuttle now that resources have been limited. The student mentioned that, “In the summer, I know most students had their own vehicles or used Uber. I asked for the bus driver’s phone number and called them when the schedule matched up. It was summer, so there were less people on campus. I don’t try to call the driver now as they have multiple drivers at all different hours.”  The Shuttle Drivers sharing their personal phone numbers isn’t new for summer students, as the driver had a decrease in students to worry about. we wouldn’t say this is favoritism and more the convenience for the season. 

Another student, a female junior with a disability, has been a student for 3 years. In addition to this, she is a resident of Woodlands 4. This student doesn’t drive and often takes trains or is driven from point A to B. This student has resorted to using Ubers this semester as she can’t wait around for the Shuttle as the temperatures begin to drop. She went on passionately with her opinion about this school:“I dislike this school. They don’t know how to manage their resources, they don’t listen to students. It’s either all or nothing with everything they try to have.” When asking this resident, she mentioned her status as a student of disability. She refuses to lose time out on her day. “I don’t have time to wait for groceries or to hang out with my friends at the mall.” 

A third student was a senior, male, and he has been at O.W. for four years. He is a resident of the Academic Village which is commonly known for the placements of older students— juniors and seniors. The Academic Village has its own parking lot and many students have their own vehicles, but not all. The young man said: “It’s always been a mixed bag. There was one time that they gave out three different schedules and only ONE of them was true. I was okay with that. Now, none of the schedules work, none of the drivers know what they are doing. They cherry pick bus stops, I won’t be leaving my dorm no more.” 

A recurring pattern it seems is that students are confused and have their arms in the air. It’s like a guessing-game with the shuttle and there’s no way to track it due to how different each driver decides to handle this situation. With students expressing their concerns, we can only hope there will be a future application that allows tracking the shuttle to be more simple and accurate.

 In addition to this, there should be more consistency in the routes and Shuttle Drivers should wait 2-3 minutes more at certain stops after the designated time on the schedule. The school website provided us an “updated” schedule as of September of 2024, but to this day, Residential Assistance, staff, and the school website all present widely different schedules which create intense dissonance. As students, we implore you to continue taking action with your complaints, as we hear them too frequently. Write letters, bring the issue to the Student Government Association (SGA), make phone calls, and continue to advocate for clear schedules and reliable accessibility to campus provided transportation. 

As students ourselves, we have opted out of using the shuttle this semester, we can’t trust it to come on time and shouldn’t have to go super early with the HOPE that the shuttle will arrive. The shuttle services come out of our already hefty tuition bills. 

We as students are busy and our destinations, appointments and other responsibilities will not wait on us like we wait on the Old Westbury Shuttle.