Roundup Editorial Board
Pierce College students, faculty and staff members can attest to the lack of urgency possessed by those who are walking the campus.
Many students and some staff members have the tendency to walk about the campus as if they are casually strolling through the park, while on a romantic date with their significant other or lolly gagging as if they are waiting for a tardy bell to ring to remind them that they have somewhere to be.
Stop it people.
It is bad enough that the campus is undergoing renovations and there are only so many decent pathways to walk down to get from point A to point B, or, let’s say, from the Village to the Performing Arts Hill.
Pierce is located on 426 acres of land and it can be difficult to get across from one end of the campus to the other, compared to Los Angeles Valley College that is situated on 127 acres.
In addition to the vastness of Pierce, there is not much time to travel from one class to the next, particularly within the 10 minutes allotted for passing between most morning classes.
It is almost unrealistic to ask someone to manage to get from the farm or anywhere on campus, south of the Mall, to the Performing Art Hill between 11 and 11:10 a.m.
Considering all the odds against you, one has to commend those who manage to make it to class on time.
Other colleges and universities, such as CSUN, which is located on 356 acres, provide a tram or shuttle service so that their students and staff members can get to their campus destination in a reasonable amount of time.
It would behoove Pierce to look into such a system so that students, faculty and staff members would be able to travel up the hill and bypass all the stragglers who choose to mope around the campus.
Currently Pierce has two shuttles services, one for students with disabilities and one that is available for all college patrons.
The discrepancy lies within how frequently the shuttle runs up and down Brahma Drive.
At CSUN, the Department of Parking Services has created a dependable system that allows students to rely on the shuttle to get them to class in a timely manner.
This is achieved by having three or more shuttles running between the hours of 8 a.m. and noon, which are highly impacted hours.
During these hours, the shuttles run on 10 minutes increments, which is stability that students can plan their schedule around.
As of now, the shuttle at Pierce is not on a time schedule, and thus is not reliable enough for students or staff members to ride it to their campus destination without being late.