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SGA Transportation Meeting 2/6/24

Unknown · 111th session · dated February 6, 2024 · updated February 7, 2024

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SGA Transportation Meeting Spring 2024 Date: 2/06/2024 Time: 3:00-3:45pm Location: Virtual (Teams) Admin: Greg Smith (Director of Hopkins Transportation), Nelson Greenlee (Transportation Manager) Students: Brandon Benjamin, Srigouri Oruganty, Jackson Morris, Danial Nabizadeh, Stone Meng, Jacquelyn Slade

Agenda:

Bayview - Homewood Transportation

  • Focus: lack of full day transportation for large student base
  • Bayview current schedule: 8-10am in 30 min increments, then 2-5 in 30 min increments
  • No lunch time schedule for students HCC or shadowing) to get transport without taking at least 1 hour of transportation/lyft
  • Apparently this gap first started during covid but was never brought back
  • Also most students need to get to bayview during lunch for shifts - at least 30 students a week for hopkins medical shifts
  • Solution: hiring 1 more driver to fill in the 10-2pm gap

Student Parking- Brandon

  • Focus- Received concerns from students saying undergraduate student parking for students who live off campus is not as accessible
  • As it stands now via the website, undergraduate student parking is unavailable unless you qualify for special accommodations, with the only option contacting the colonnade.
  • Paid parking options by the baseball stadium are open to public view and unprotected, and some even have meters that do not work
    • Locations include-next to the baseball field which has reportedly been out of order for the past year
  • With a parking option arranged on a semesterly basis, students are curious on whether this can potentially be including in student’s financial aid packages
  • Solution- Repurposing a portion of the San-Martin garage for undergraduate students.
  • Students who use the rec park their cars at the disabled parking spots next to the entrance. Not all of them seem to qualify for disabled parking. How can we more strictly enforce use of disability parking spots only for those who need it? (Danial)

Expanding the Radius for Homewood Night Ride- Srigouri

  • Awkward spaces in inner harbor that are considered part of the night ride radius, can that be expanded to include more parts of inner harbor or at least fill in the gap?
  • Expand to the oriole stadium?
  • Little Italy maybe?
  • Jacquelyn-Complaints that it can take a while to get a night ride. However, I have noticed that I have gotten Lyfts assigned much more frequently.
  • “Driver doesn’t see you” notifications and discussion

Transparency on Transloc- Srigouri

  • Many students complain about the lack of proper information on TransLoc on when shuttles are coming and going
  • What steps are taken to correct this?
  • How should students notify if there is a problem with the app and it needs to be fixed?

JHMI on Weekends -Jacquelyn-Tea Party-many Homewood students had to Lyft or Uber to Peabody with their own resources to get to Peabody at an event President Ron Daniels himself attended. This event was supposed to show the “one university” vision, but transit didn’t support that. -Can the JHMI rides be distributed evenly? Sometimes there is no ride for ~25 minutes, and other times there are back-to-back rides (Danial)

CharmPass/public transportation:

  • Morgan State University students are given student rates for bus passes. Why can’t Hopkins do that? (Danial)
  • Can there be routes to other local colleges for the summer for students who take courses in adjacent institutions? (Danial)
  • Jacquelyn- Maybe through Baltimore collegetown?

Minutes:

Bayview Initiative:

  • They want to bring it back too but they need money,
  • Greg smith: Gap: 75,000 to 80,000 dollar range to provide all=year service. There is not support for increased funding. Have the ability to configure the schedule with the costs that they have.a
  • Stone: What does the budget structure look like for Transportation?
  • Greg: Blue Jay Shuttle— safety/security cost burden per space on campus
  • Greg: Bayview/other places tend to be funded by the buildings they service
    1. Keswick shuttle: funded by Keswick, Homewood
    2. Mount Washington shuttle: both ends fund it, etc.
  • JHMI shuttle
    1. University Administration office — cost to each of the schools based on either employee count, square footage, etc.
    2. Greg: Always nice to get things in writing: understand that there are budget difficulties but here is what we want for students
    3. This gives transportation the ability to come back and provide us with estimated prices on providing those services.
  • Undergraduate parking - Brandon Benjamin
    1. Website says that undergraduate parking is not available except under certain accommodations. Current solution is the Colonade, which is full/cost-prohibitive
    2. Some of the parking meters (near baseball field) do not work
    3. Students wanted to know whether it would be possible to have a dedicated lot/space for undergraduate students
      1. University doesn’t really want to support having cars on campus, wants to provide other transportation
      2. Residential Parking Permit (RPP) through Baltimore City ($20 a year?) allows for parking on the street
      3. Academy/9 East provide parking to residents
        1. Academy: $100 outside, $130 inside
      4. Greg: Does not have the authority to allow undergraduate students to get University parking, DOSL has to give permission
        1. Follow up at GBM
    4. Brandon: Where does the RPP apply to?
      1. https://parking.baltimorecity.gov/residential-parking
    5. Danial: have seen students who don’t have handicap parking passes in parking
      1. Greg: Difficult to enforce
  • Srigouri: expanding the Homewood night ride? (eg. little Italy, etc.)
    1. Expansion is funding dependent
    2. Expanding the radius “non-linearly” increases demand for the rides
    3. Around June we can target SPECIFIC locations that we want to be added to the map
      1. Follow-up: what data is needed to justify expansion?
        1. Frequency of demands; sidenote: historical requests have led to blobs being added to the map
        2. Feasibility of service: 100s of feet is simpler than expanding by 1 mile
      2. Solution: send out survey to the student body to gauge the demand
    4. https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1JpD5WTqG3W-4cL8PGgLShgdCIshQaWA&ll=39.31737508042587%2C-76.62215920000003&z=13
  • Jacquelyn: says rides between Peabody and Homewood have improved, BUT has heard that students complain of long waits. There are issues with TransLoc when it is not accurate, and you don’t know to take the bus or the shuttle. Cont: not all rides are shown on TransLoc or there are phantom rides that don’t actually come
    1. Send emails to shuttle at JHU.edu-peabody express shuttle to Barnes and Noble from Peabody-send in feedback. Disappearing buses-send feedback
    2. Answer: is surprised by inaccuracy of TransLoc
    3. Cell signal drops out near Hampden Giant
    4. Some new drivers say they can’t see you when that’s not a problem.
  • Srigouri: Not only the busses but shuttles too have wrong information
    1. Students have talked about not being able to see the shuttles for the Giant Night Ride and waited for long periods of time
    2. How can students contact to make sure that somebody is coming?
      1. Nelson: advise anyone to use shuttles@jhu.edu
      2. Can call the bluejay dispatch office (on the back of the J-CARD)
    3. Peabody does not have the bluejay shuttle number on the back of their J-CARD-will call jcard officehu
    4. https://parking.baltimorecity.gov/residential-parking
  • Greg: Expect JHMI to show up every 10-15 minutes. If it doesn’t show up at the time (or doesn’t appear on TransLoc) feel free to send him a note.
  • Stone: Experience of buses not coming frequently appears to be corroborated by another report from students
  • Greg: Recommend being at the site a couple minutes before departure time
    1. Every 25 minutes during the weekend.
  • Stone: happened Saturday, February 3rd, around 5:30-6:00 pm
  • Jacquelyn: Maybe SGA/PGA should revamp a version of Alex’s survey for reporting times to be sent to transit on regular intervals?
    1. Schedule that all buses must follow: https://jhfre.jhu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Copy-of-HW-PB-JHMI.pdf
    2. CONFIDENTIAL: Transloc-thinking about new app. Were in the past thinking about separate app for JHMI and bus routes vs. night ride.
  • Options for trips for small groups: Lyft Codes, HopVans, Bus Pass.
  • Brandon: Follow up on parking. Demonstrating need for Parking? Data?
    1. What drives need? Is it a choice or is it a need?
    2. Very few commuter students (2, 3, 4). Can give you parking on campus but university doesn’t want students to have cars.
    3. Ex.) ROTC student at Peabody, worked with them to find options (may not have worked out…)
  • Stone: Test for survey, reach out on wording, question topics.