NYU’s Safe Ride overnight shuttle program moved the start time of its Manhattan shuttles up by one hour to 11 p.m. on Oct. 11.

The Brooklyn shuttle still begins operating at midnight, and both shuttles continue to offer rides until 7 a.m.

During operating hours, NYU students can book free rides between university facilities and three public transportation stations in Manhattan. The overnight shuttle service to Brooklyn also offers a fixed-route shuttle, which travels between Bobst Library and 80 Lafayette in Manhattan and the Clark and Othmer residence halls in Brooklyn.

Gregory Rivas, NYU’s director of transportation services, said the department determined the new start time based on the times when students had requested the shuttle most often.

“The pilot of an 11 p.m. start to Safe Ride resulted from a trending spike of ride requests at the beginning of the Safe Ride service period each evening, causing a slow down in service through 2 a.m.,” Rivas wrote to WSN.

The Safe Ride program is provided through a partnership with Via Transportation, a transit technology company which previously offered a rideshare service. Students can request a ride through Via’s mobile app and use a promo code from NYU’s website to redeem a ride for free.

NYU junior Lynn Zhou said that the time change benefits students who stay late in NYU buildings to study. She said she wishes that Campus Safety would have sent out a universitywide email alerting students of the time change so that more students would have been aware that they can request the service earlier.

Like Zhou, NYU senior Malinda Yu said she thought the university could have better communicated the change.

“Especially as a female, improving safety is very important, especially in New York,” Yu said. “It’s really helpful. The more people know about this, the better.” 

NYU sophomore Rachael Kessler, however, was less enthusiastic, calling the new start time “arbitrary.” With the winter months coming up and the sun setting in the early evening, she added that she thinks students would be safer if the service was offered even earlier.

Contact Bryn Borzillo at [email protected].