Ellie Park, Multimedia Managing Editor

A proposal to modify the Yale Shuttle’s nighttime routes and extend daytime service east may take effect this spring.

The proposal — presented by Administrative Services Director George Longyear at a School of Medicine Community Safety town hall on Wednesday — looks to replace the underutilized nighttime Cedar Express route with a new daytime Gold line to Wooster Square and to restructure the shuttle’s Orange and Blue nighttime lines to add faster fixed routes. The changes seek to improve services for medical students living east of campus.

“We were asked at many different forums over the past several months to see what we can do to expedite our nighttime shuttle service and to improve our program into some unserved areas,” Longyear said at the town hall.

Longyear explained that his team aimed to expedite nighttime routes and extend daytime service east of State Street in Wooster Square — where more Yale affiliates now live due to new residential developments — all while maintaining their current budget. 

Currently, the Yale Shuttle offers four nighttime lines, which run from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. The Purple line makes a loop of fixed stops from the School of Medicine building at 333 Cedar St. to Yale’s West Campus. 

The Blue line begins at 333 Cedar St. and travels north along a fixed set of stops to Prospect Street and Sachem Street. Then, the shuttle begins “to-door” service, delivering passengers to specific addresses in the area north of Prospect Street and west of Whitney Avenue. The nighttime Orange line also starts at the School of Medicine, makes a set of stops up to Canner Street and offers to-door service east of Whitney Avenue. 

The Cedar Express line, meanwhile, only performs to-door service from the School of Medicine, without any fixed route or stops. Throughout 2024, the Cedar Express nighttime route served on average eight passengers daily, according to a slideshow Longyear presented. Each loop on the Shuttle took up to an hour and a half to complete.

“After speaking with many users of the program, which was important to us, it was apparent that while the flexi-stops were extremely important, the shuttles cannot be consistent or on time based on the number of stops,” Longyear said.

Longyear’s proposal plans to reallocate resources from the Cedar Express toward establishing a new daytime route, the Gold line, which will take passengers from the School of Medicine to central and east campus from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. The proposed Gold line will operate on a loop of 11 fixed stops, according to Longyear’s presentation, going West from the School of Medicine to Dwight Street, North to Elm Street, East into the Wooster Square area, then South to Union Station, before returning to the School of Medicine.

Proposed route for Yale Shuttle Gold line

To support the existing Orange and Blue lines, new nighttime “Orange East” and “Blue West” routes will provide loops of fixed stops in central campus, Wooster Square and Science Hill. Longyear estimated that each loop would take around a half hour to complete.

“If you’re inclined not to wait for the flexi-stop to your service, you could just jump on one of these, get off at one of these fixed locations which are closer to you, and know that if you happen to miss this, the bus will be back around to you in 30 minutes, rather than waiting, in some cases, up to an hour and a half for the next bus to show up,” Longyear said.

Tony Ma, a School of Medicine employee who has lived in East Rock for over 30 years, attended part of the town hall to ask a question about the shuttle service. Though Ma tries to walk home from work, he  often uses the Yale Shuttle’s to-door service on the Orange line at night.

Some graduate students and School of Medicine staff members use the shuttle because they are scared or uncomfortable walking, according to Ma. Others, he said, are just exhausted after long hours and hard work. 

“Along the way I walk, frequently I see people running to catch up to the shuttle,” Ma said. “There are many people that are just afraid of a walk. I’m fine, but I know so many people that do not feel that way.”

The proposed shuttle route modifications have been underway for months. Longyear delivered a presentation on his efforts to enhance shuttle service in a prior Community Safety Town Hall in September 2024. He plans to finalize the modifications and communicate them to the University community in February, with a tentative launch date in March.

Wednesday’s town hall was moderated by Arnim Dontes, who chairs the YSM Safety and Security Committee. Concluding the meeting, Dontes encouraged attendees to continue sending in questions and feedback related to public safety.

“Your feedback, your comments, your questions are really important,” Dontes said. “A number of the questions really help inform the work that our colleagues do that helps our safety and operations at the university and health system.”

The School of Medicine will hold its next community safety town hall on April 23.

Correction, Feb. 5: This article was corrected to reflect that Arnim Dontes, not Nicholas Proto, moderated the town hall meeting.

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ARIELA LOPEZ
Ariela Lopez covers Cops and Courts for the City Desk and lays out the weekly print paper as a Production & Design editor. She previously covered City Hall. Ariela is a sophomore in Branford College, originally from New York City.