Over the last five years, TCU has undergone major construction and expansion. This plan is an effort to keep more of the student body, especially upperclassmen, on campus. Because of this, however, the campus itself has expanded out to a point where students may take up to 20-25 minutes walking to class, not counting off-campus housing.
In order to fix this problem, TCU implemented their very own public transportation system, the Leap shuttle buses. Despite this seemingly easy solution, students have not used the Leap as much as intended.
The Leap consists of three circular routes around campus and parking lots. The red, green and blue routes take about 15 minutes to complete a round trip.
Milan Borges, a sophomore musical theatre major, just started using the Leap.
“It’s convenient, I live in Molly Reid and it’s a far walk for a lot of my classes,” Borges said.
Borges talked about how the Leap has been of great use, not just because of the walk but for beating the Texas heat, especially during the summer months.
“It’s air-conditioned,” Borges said. “If you catch it at the right time, it speeds up everything. Sometimes the estimated times on the website are not the most accurate, though.”
According to the first years, very little is known about the Leap, to the point that some people didn’t even know it existed. Lauren Hurley, a first-year biochemistry major, had never seen or heard of the Leap. Living far away from her classes, Hurley suggested a marketing change.
One bus driver said she sees a similar lack of use.
“I think blue is used the most because people are going to the lots, to their cars,” Leap driver Ladonna Price said, driving an almost completely empty bus on the red route at the time.
Price informed us that lots of TCU professors also use the Leap to get to their cars. Price said a lot of students ask questions about if the bus is for students, if it’s free, and they have no idea where the bus goes, but with the new changes the Leap is implementing, this might change.
“I think when they see the new logo, they’ll be more aware,” Price told us that the Leap will be getting new buses with bigger logos. “In a couple of weeks, we’re supposed to get our new buses, some this month and more next month.”
The new buses will be a little smaller, holding 35-40 people.
