By Samantha Hart
Lifestyle Editor
The students and faculty at both Fairleigh Dickinson New Jersey campuses are preparing for the future at FDU with the new class schedule.
It’s no surprise that students and faculty will now have to commute back and forth more frequently than they’ve done over previous years for classes and other campus events.
An economically friendly plan would be incorporating a shuttle to and from both campuses or from local bus stops.
It would make life easier for many commuter students. They wouldn’t have to worry about driving themselves anywhere and could collectively contribute to lowering the commuting student body’s carbon footprint.
The potential for a shuttle has more significance than just making Fairleigh Dickinson more well known and loved in the community.
If FDU were able to gain access or create a busing system for its students and faculty, the carbon footprint of the school would be reduced significantly.
“Worldwide, road users account for about 71% of transport CO2 emissions, with railway companies making up less than 1.8%, next to 12.3% for aviation and 14.3% for shipping,” according to the International Energy Agency and International Union of Railways.
This only further supports the argument that FDU should enable some sort of transportation system for its students, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.
“If, at some point in the future, we do have great demand from students to travel between the campuses for any purposes, we will certainly consider busing options. I have to say though, at the moment this does not happen very frequently,” according to Provost Gillian Small.
This many not be in the current plans for FDU, but it could certainly come into play in the future if enough students believe a shuttle would be a better option and request it from the school.
The students may also want to commute via shuttle to save their own gas. “Those who ride public transportation save an estimated 1.4 billion gallons of fuel each year, representing a total annual cost savings of $5.6 billion for American families,” according to Friends of the Earth.
“However, less than five percent of Americans live in communities with convenient and reliable access (within one-half mile) to public transportation or other alternatives to driving a car,” according to Friends of the Earth.
With this in mind, FDU could develop its own shuttle system that would give the entire FDU community access to a cleaner and cheaper means of transportation.
This story is a part of The Equinox‘s participation in a statewide climate reporting collaboration by members of the NJ College News Commons, a network of campus media outlets working together to cover the climate crisis in N.J.