Four public meetings took place to discuss possible changes to UTRGV’s Parking and Transportation services, and receive feedback from students on Aug. 9-11 on the Edinburg, Weslaco and Brownsville campuses.
Director of Transportation services Maribel Contreras, expressed that one of the changes to the fall 2023 semester is the discontinuation of the VOLT blue circuit in the Edinburg campus.
The VOLT purple circuit was introduced to compensate for the demand of the now discontinued circuit. This service goes from the visitor’s center to the University Recreation Center.
“Of course, through the purple circuit we were still going to leave some of the areas that the blue circuit was providing on the parking lots of E31, E32, E33 which are the parking lots that are towards the back area of the campus,” Contreras said. “We were going to leave those as a cost-off. So if anybody needed a service in that area we would be able to provide it through the purple circuit.”
Another proposed change was the suspension of the service from the Visual Arts Building to the main Edinburg campus, but after the input of the students they decided to continue with the service.
“After receiving concerns from the students and the public, we are going to go ahead and continue the service for the fall semester and evaluate the demand of that service,” she said.
For the upcoming freshman class, transportation services increased the amount of shuttle buses in order to make sure the demand for commuting from one campus to another is served.
Additionally, Valley Metro will provide service for the Weslaco to Brownsville connector for the remainder of the semester. The Weslaco pick-up will go to Brownsville at 8:10 a.m. and arrive at 9 a.m. Brownsville Pick-up will go to Weslaco at 5:10 p.m. and arrive at 6:05 p.m.
Assistant Director of Transportation Lucio Lopez said that one of the main solutions to the parking problem on both campuses is for students to make use of the VOLT service.
“One of our main targets is for students to be able to park on the further campus areas, the parking lots, which are usually empty,” Lopez said. “ By then being able to park there with the transportation services that we have, we are able to bring them from there, into the main part of the campus.”
He expressed that parking on campus gives students peace of mind that their cars are protected since the UTRGV Police Department is constantly patrolling the area.
Contreras invites the Vaqueros to use the transportation services that are free.
“We just want to go ahead and invite everybody to ride on [the] Vaquero Express,” she said. “Use our shuttle services for all the different campuses for Edinburg, Weslaco, Harlingen and Brownsville.”
She said that there are available positions for VOLT drivers, and students can apply on Handshake.
For maps and schedules, visit the UTRGV Parking and Transportation website at www.utrgv.edu/pts for comments or concerns email transportation@utrgv.edu
This is Fernanda Gonzalez for Vaquero Radio.
