COVER STORY SIDEBAR
Campus to campus, five years down the road by luxury bus
The Campus-to-Campus bus in front of Sage Hall on the Ithaca campus. See larger image
One indicator of Cornell's growing relationship with New York City is the growing ridership on the Campus-to-Campus bus that has been making 14 round trips a week between Manhattan and Ithaca for the past five years.
"The first year we carried about 2,500 people. In the fifth year, we carried almost 25,000," says David Lieb '89, assistant director for Cornell Transportation Services, which created and provides the service.
The luxury coaches (with large seats, a stocked galley and wi-fi Internet access) have logged more than a million road miles, he said, and carried 68,000 passengers since the shuttle service began (averaging nearly 100 passenger miles per gallon, which, Lieb notes, "is an efficient and highly sustainable number").
And of course, the bus only accounts for a portion of the people going to and coming from New York. Anyone with a Cornell connection can ride. Passengers range from President David Skorton (who is a regular) to undergraduates heading to the city for the first time.
A round trip on the bus goes for $150, compared with about $600 for the equivalent flight. "We developed this bus with the business needs of the university in mind," Lieb says.
Visit www.c2cbus.com for schedules and more information.