P2P system integral to the first-year experience

There’s rain streaking the windows of the bus as it rumbles along Stadium Drive, stopping behind a Carolina Livery bus for several minutes and then finally swerving around it after the driver has checked to see that the path is clear. The windshield wipers keep time with the podcast he has on, soft British narration mixing with one of the two passengers’ phone conversation. She’s telling her friend about her upcoming biology exam, bags from CVS and Moe’s spread out beside her.

This might be the norm for 8 p.m. on a Wednesday in mid-June, but the P2P Express is anything but calm in the school year.

The P2P runs from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. seven days a week whenever the University is in session.

“I’d ride it coming home from the library super late, but also any parties that are super far away,” junior Kelsey Gonzalez said. “So I feel like it’s a big key in the first-year experience.”

According to Randy Young, a media relations manager for transportation and parking, around 40,000 students utilize the service in peak months of service.

The P2P service began in 1992 with an on-demand shuttle service that’s still in operation today. The Express buses began running in 1993.

“It was put into effect in order to augment the Chapel Hill Transit services that ended at a certain time of night,” Young said. “So it’s basically a vehicle — no pun intended — for safe delivery of students to and from campus locations.”

Since it’s the only form of free, late-night transportation, the trip from Franklin Street to Hinton James can get hairy.

“I remember it basically being ass-to-ass, all the way down,” senior Rishi Kumar said of his first-year experiences on the P2P. “Especially late at night, because everybody was drunk trying to get home from Franklin.”

Most upperclassmen talk about the P2P in the past tense, utilizing the service less as they move from South Campus to off-campus housing — which is not serviced by the Express bus — and mid-campus dormitories with weekend parking, or at least a shorter walk from Franklin Street.

However, that nostalgia might not have a physical form rumbling around campus anymore. UNC Transportation and Parking will be getting new express buses in the fall, and the P2P shuttles will have TransLoc technology installed so that riders will be able to track their requested ride. Young said the school is also finalizing minor changes to the P2P Express route.

“I believe we’re getting three new, larger buses that may have more seating than the old ones. I don’t have specifics,” Young said. “The old fleet was just heavily used and it was time to bring in newer vehicles. They all use biodiesel, to move towards sustainability.”

But despite the old buses’ quirks, both Gonzalez and Kumar said that they didn’t think the P2P needed to improve.

“I feel like it does a pretty good job, especially because it runs so late,” Gonzalez said. “It hits all the main spots around campus.”

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