Beginning next semester, the Point-2-Point shuttle service will gain another bus to run an additional route to many Chapel Hill apartment complexes, thus making transportation available to many off-campus students.
"This expansion will serve approximately 60 to 70 percent of the off-campus population, which makes up 52 percent of the entire undergraduate population," said sophomore Anup Dashputre, director of the Safe Ride Program. "This entire expansion is geared toward the off-campus population."
The Safe Ride expansion will cost about $60,000.
The new P2P will operate Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m and will run down Airport Road from Columbia Street to Weaver Dairy Road, and cover Merritt Mill Road to Smith Level Bypass to the University Commons apartment complex.
The routes, designed by students Sal Cangeloso and Ali Khoshnevis, will run 30-minute round trips and will service all the neighborhoods along those roads.
Between one-quarter and one-half of the money for Safe Ride will come from the SAFE Escort budget, Dashputre said. A student government committee announced Wednesday that funding to the SAFE Escort program will be cut after this semester.
Although organizers have yet to raise the rest of the $60,000, they say they are confident they will meet their goal.
Dashputre said the Division of Student Affairs will donate a large portion of the money and that the group hopes to get donations from private businesses and local apartment complexes.
Dashputre said he hopes this will not be the end of the expansion and that he wants to expand to Glen Lennox within the next 1 1/2 years.
