Photo courtesy of Unsplash.
Have you ever mysteriously been charged $12 after taking a five-minute Lyft ride from Conn to the New London Train Station? Have you had to wait almost an hour for an available Lyft driver to pick you up? Or have you wondered why you need to pay out of pocket for rides to your regular off-campus doctor appointments?
The new Camel Ride by Lyft program, which replaced the Camel Van program in the fall of 2020, has not been living up to the needs and expectations of Conn students. First-year students are not permitted to have cars on campus (unless they have an exemption), and certainly not every sophomore, junior, or senior owns a car either. Many students rely on Conn’s transportation services to get to the train station, airport, doctor’s office, pharmacy, supermarket, and other off-campus locations. However, the new Lyft program has turned out to be more of an inconvenience for students than an easy transportation method.
In an October 2020 message about the new Lyft program, Dean of Students Victor Arcelus wrote, “Students will be able to order rides on demand rather than waiting for the Camel Van to complete its route. As a result, it eliminates the need to have a large van unnecessarily driving a predetermined loop without passengers.” Clearly, the old Camel Van program was not ideal as students could not leave campus whenever they wanted.
The new Lyft program gives students four free rides per month (two round trips) for up to $12 per ride. The free service is available from 9 am until 10:30 pm each day of the week. Students can only be picked up and dropped off at the campus Lyft stop (the benches in front of Smith House) and at a limited number of approved locations in New London, Waterford, and Groton. The eligible locations include the New London train station, the Crystal Mall and New London Mall, the Waterford Commons shopping center, Target and Walmart in Waterford, Harkness Memorial State Park, Ocean Beach Park, the Social Security Office, and eight churches/religious centers in the area.
Students who want or need to be dropped off anywhere else must pay full price for their ride. Lyft rides can be expensive, especially when there is a limited availability of drivers in the area (which happens quite often). One student shared that their free Lyft passes did not activate during the first semester and they ended up finding out from their bank statement that they were charged for all of their rides.
Personally, at the beginning of the school year I was not aware that I could only get a free Lyft ride if I was picked up from the Smith benches. My Lyft app automatically set my pick-up location to my dorm building (Larrabee) and I did not change it because I thought I could be picked up anywhere on campus. I later realized that I was charged almost $13 for a 5-minute ride to the New London train station just because my driver picked me up about 1000 feet from the Lyft stop. I contacted Conn transportation services but was not offered a refund.
The specific drop-off locations are annoying to students who just want the freedom to leave campus and go anywhere without restrictions. Skyler Kardell ‘25 said, “The areas [Conn] choose[s] are way too small and sometimes ableist.” Alex Jutt ‘24 explained, “When I have to get a prescription from CVS pharmacy, I go to the Social Security office because that’s the closest covered destination, about a 10 minute walk from CVS.” He continued, “I suspect that the walk could be difficult for someone physically disabled since there’s large stretches of no sidewalk/busy crossings and most of it is uphill.” It is a problem that the free Lyft service does not cover rides to pharmacies aside from the one inside Target, which may not carry all prescriptions. And, according to the Conn website, rides to urgent care are only covered when the Student Health Services office is closed or when students get a referral from SHS.
Any other doctor appointments (specialists, etc.) are not covered. Elena Crowell ‘25 shared, “I have to go to physical therapy twice a week which means I have to use a Lyft four times a week. The cost really adds up.” Even if Crowell’s physical therapy office was a covered location, she would only get one week of free rides per month because the program supports two round trips per month. Further, Abby Dawson ‘25 commented on the difficulty of getting to pharmacies: “I hate how [the Lyft service] does not cover stops to Walgreens or CVS for us to pick up prescriptions, so that the college can profit off of their prescription program…[The service] is incredibly inaccessible and expensive to get anywhere that is not covered.”
The time constraints of the Lyft service are also an inconvenience for students. Anyone whose train gets into New London after 10:30 pm has to pay for a ride back to the college, and they may have to wait for their Lyft to arrive because of the limited number of available drivers late at night. Victor Alayande ‘25 said, “I was stuck in the Amtrak [station] as my train came in at 10:30 p.m.” Similarly, Amelia Greenwald ‘25 shared, “When I came back from spring break I arrived at the [New London Amtrak] station around 8 p.m. and wanted to use my free Lyft pass to get back to campus. When I requested a ride, nothing was available and it was taking forever to process, estimating I wouldn’t get a ride until 8:45 p.m. It was a Sunday night and I was alone and did not feel comfortable waiting that long and that late to get back to campus. I ended up having to download the Uber app and pay almost $30 for a ride back to campus.” Clearly, the time constraints and overall lack of available rides make the Lyft experience very frustrating for students.
The Camel Ride by Lyft program would serve students a lot better if it allowed for more free rides per month, supported rides later than 10:30 pm, and included a wider range of eligible locations. Students should be able to be picked up or dropped off anywhere on campus and anywhere in New London, Groton, or Waterford for free. Students should not have to pay for rides to the pharmacy or outside doctor appointments. Additionally, if Lyft Shared rides were available in New London (according to the Lyft website, this service is only available in certain cities), the lack of available drivers would not be as much of an issue because students who are traveling to the same place at the same time would not have to wait for separate Lyfts. These steps would make it more accessible for students to leave campus and fulfill their needs without facing unnecessary challenges with the Lyft program.
