Planning to take the GreenLink shuttle from Fribley Commons to the Peter B. Lewis Building (PBL), I stood under the shuttle pick-up sign, as I do every day to go to class. It was around 5 p.m., windy with a feels-like of 18 degrees Fahrenheit. As mapped on the GreenLink’s route, the shuttle drove up the hill to loop around Fribley before returning to my stop. However, instead of following its usual route, the shuttle took an unannounced break behind Fribley before driving toward Little Italy—the opposite direction from its designated stop. When I boarded the shuttle 30 minutes later, my gloved hands were deep red, throbbing and shivering from waiting in the cold.

It’s Case Western Reserve University’s responsibility to ensure its students have access to reliable campus transportation. Not only is exposure to extremely cold temperatures dangerous, unpunctual transportation may cause even the best-planned students to be late to class.

The university contracts Allied Universal to provide 24 shuttles which run on different days and times. Students can view the status of these shuttles in the CWRU Spartan Ride app. While this might sound like a lot of shuttles to cover the 267-acre main campus, the majority of undergraduate students have classes on and at the Case Quad, the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Mather Quad and PBL. The current routes in these locations are the GreenLink, NightLink, KSL Express, Nursing, AM Commuter and PM Commuter—three of which are night/evening-only. With the majority of undergraduate classes in specific locations, students require punctual shuttles to frequent these locations and also have the capacity to keep up transportation.

Students have access to Safe Ride—a rideshare service the university contracts from Allied Universal—which they can book in the Spartan Ride app from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. The average wait time for a Safe Ride is 12.24 minutes. During the daytime, this service is only available to community members with approved accommodations.

During winter, sunset occurs around 5 p.m. in Cleveland. However, until 6 p.m., most students’ only options are waiting for a shuttle or walking across campus. Students are left weighing their two options: wait outside for the shuttle that might arrive well after expected or walk outside for about 20 minutes. In the bitter cold or heavy snow, neither feels like an optimal choice. Exposure to naturally cold temperatures, combined with wind chill, is proven to be dangerous, with feels-like temperatures of 13 degrees Fahrenheit being likely to lead to frostbite if outside for over 30 minutes. In 2024, the coldest month was January with an average low of 24 degrees Fahrenheit and a high of 35 degrees Fahrenheit.

​​While the university technically operates 24 shuttle routes and runs two shuttles per route during “peak times,” their reliability remains questionable. Despite timing our commutes using the university-provided app, shuttles frequently fail to arrive as scheduled, often causing students to be late to class. This inconsistency poses serious risks to both students’ physical safety and their academic performance.

With the opening of the new South Residential Village housing in August 2024, along with the ongoing construction of the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building and other developments, the university must reassess the state of its transportation system and implement necessary improvements. Safe Ride should operate from sundown, based on daylight levels rather than a fixed clock time. Additional shuttles are needed on high-traffic routes, and they must be held accountable for adhering to their stops and schedules. Furthermore, Spartan Ride should provide greater transparency, including notifications in advance of when a shuttle is going on break, so students are not left waiting unknowingly. Simply having campus transportation isn’t enough if the community it serves cannot count on it.