WPI offers countless ways to spend your free time—music performances, dancing, fun sports events at the Goat’s Head—but have you ever wished to search for something new and different to do off-campus?
SGA implemented a program for WPI students only to help with transportation around Worcester conveniently and for relatively cheap. The service is called Safe Ride, and was established with Red Cab of Worcester to supplement the services of SNAP and the Woo Bus on weekends, specifically from Thursday at 10 p.m. until Sunday at 6 a.m.
As the name implies, Safe Ride is intended to offer transportation to and from WPI’s campus when students are not able to drive for certain reasons or when it is too dark at night (Worcester can definitely be a dangerous, sketchy place, let’s agree on this point). Several students, when asked about the usefulness of a new program like Safe Ride, cited that they or their friends would like to take Safe Ride to and from bars farther from campus than the one-mile limit in which SNAP runs.
However, many examples were given of common off-campus daytime activities of WPI students that would be facilitated by Safe Ride. For instance, sophomore Greg Saucier explained that people often want to visit other colleges in the consortium but do not want to take the Woo Bus because its rounds take a while, and also that SafeRide will be a good replacement for SNAP when going to places to where SNAP won’t take you, “because it’s not relevant to school or your house, like Moe’s and Price Chopper.”
Moreover, as junior Taylor North explained, “SNAP doesn’t always take you to the train station,” since it lies outside SNAP’s one-mile boundary, and sophomore Dana Buckley pointed out that “people will use it to go shopping, as a group thing.”
Additionally, Amelia Martini, a senior and a Crimson Key tour guide, wisely cited that she no longer has to answer the question on tours about what there is to do off-campus “that a bunch of pre-frosh always ask…” while limiting her response to what is both “within a mile of campus and cheap.”
According to SGA member Melissa Castle, who was a major force in setting up Safe Ride, the deal that was established with Red Cab was that WPI students can take a taxi within six miles of campus for a flat rate of four dollars per one-way trip, no matter where in the six miles the destination is.
Considering the fact that the taxi will accommodate a maximum of four students at a time, a group of four friends seeing a movie or going to the mall would only have to pay one dollar each way!
A couple exceptions to these basic rules are that the Safe Ride service will take students to the Shoppes at Blackstone Valley, since WPI students visit it often, but the taxis will not escort anyone to a liquor store, and no alcohol is permitted in the taxis, as Castle stated.
SGA got the idea for Safe Ride from an old advisor, Jay Sparling, who, when he was the Student Body President of Assumption College, set up a “very popular” Safe Ride service with Yellow Cab “but it only brought students back to campus from wherever they had called,” explained Castle. SGA thought it best to offer students transportation to and from off-campus destinations, “so they started the process of setting up a similar deal with Red Cab, worked out a contract with the company, and here we are today.”
Safe Ride is only a “pilot program” though, Castle reported, which means that the service will go on until its “pilot funds” are all used up, because SGA is paying the difference between the actual price for rides and the four dollars that the passengers pay. So be sure to try out Safe Ride and give SGA some feedback! Just make sure to show your WPI ID card to the taxi driver.
Questions or comments can be emailed to saferide@wpi.edu.