GRTC to pilot new ridership program for VCU and VCU Health
Dear members of the VCU and VCU Health communities,
Now through July 31, 2019, you will have – at no cost to you – unlimited transportation access on GRTC’s Pulse Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and regular fixed-route bus service (local and express) – thanks to a new partnership with GRTC.
We are excited for this partnership opportunity and our ability to provide our VCU community with greater access and alternative means to explore and connect to more areas of Richmond – a need revealed through our most recent strategic planning process. I encourage you to take advantage of GRTC’s extended transit network, particularly the Pulse and Route 5 routes, when commuting to and from the university, traveling between the two campuses, and exploring our great city. Initially, you can do all of this by presenting your VCU-, VCU Health System- or Virginia Premier-issued ID card to the bus driver upon boarding. We will transition to new cards for riding GRTC buses, which will be distributed late in the fall semester or early in the spring semester in 2019.
This transportation initiative, led by Vice President for Administration Meredith Weiss and her staff, was recommended in a recently completed campus wide parking and transportation study of the ONE VCU Master Plan and will be managed through VCU Parking and Transportation. The Campus Connector will continue to provide intracampus transportation service with existing stops through the end of the year. However, beginning in spring 2019, the service will transition to an ‘express’ route. Shuttles to the remote parking facilities (A, I, M, R lots) will continue to service these locations as normal.
As this is a pilot program, ridership data and your feedback will help provide us with the necessary information to accurately understand transit demand, evaluate the pilot program’s success and inform our future transportation program decisions. Throughout the pilot period, I encourage you to share your feedback at parking.vcu.edu/transportation/grtc/feedback/. In the meantime, you can learn more about this pilot program by visiting parking.vcu.edu/transportation/grtc/. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Parking and Transportation directly at (804) 828-7275 or parking@vcu.edu.
Let’s get on the bus!
Sincerely,
Michael Rao
President, VCU and VCU Health System
Categories 21st-Century University, Community, Health, News, Periodic update, To VCU