Trey Stubbs and Craig Wischerath are in Armory Square all the time. They usually head down on Tuesdays to catch new record releases at the Sound Garden. Most of the time, the pair rides Centro’s regular city bus as it meanders its way into the heart of Syracuse, said Wischerath, an undeclared freshman in The College of Arts and Sciences.

Would they take a free bus, running directly from the Syracuse University campus to Armory on the weekends?

‘Oh hell, yeah,’ said Stubbs, a freshman childhood and family studies major.

The Student Association is taking its second shot at providing students with a free ride, resurrecting its Armory Square shuttle for launch this weekend. The bus will run Fridays and Saturdays for the remainder of the semester from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m., departing from the College Place bus stop every half hour and picking up students from the Mount and Brewster and Boland residence halls before reaching Armory Square, said SA Vice President Rigaud Noel, a senior political science major.

SA is also planning an end-of-the-semester event at Armory Square on Dec. 5. On that day, the shuttle will run from noon until 2 a.m., and students will be able to participate in a scavenger hunt culminating in a celebration in the Museum of Science and Technology, Noel said.

SA has revamped the shuttle since its cancellation last semester due to poor ridership numbers and a pair of scheduling mix-ups by Centro, during which the bus didn’t show up for a scheduled run. Noel said he has worked closely with the Downtown Committee to get Armory Square merchants to provide students with discounts. The committee also gave SA $618 to extend the shuttle’s hours of operation and is subsidizing the printing of pamphlets and poster-sized schedules that will hang in residence halls to advertise the shuttle.

‘They really want this to happen,’ Noel said. ‘Hopefully, this will get out to students.’

The Downtown Committee hopes the shuttle will integrate students with the Syracuse community, as well as generate revenue for downtown businesses, said committee spokesman Tim Carroll. In addition to restaurants such as Kitty Hoynes Irish Pub and Restaurant and merchants such as Firefly Lighting Inc., students will receive discounts for Syracuse Crunch hockey and the Museum of Science and Technology.

Carroll said the committee had considered the potential for the shuttle to become a ‘last-call bus,’ ferrying drunken and possibly rowdy students, and has been in discussion with the Syracuse Police officers who conduct foot patrols of Armory Square. The officers said they experienced no problems when the shuttle ran last semester, and many bars in the area are already taking precautions to curb underage drinking in the wake of Operation Prevent, Carroll said. The committee will deal with any additional problems as they arise.

‘We’ll just have to see,’ Carroll said.

Published on November 10, 2003 at 12:00 pm