College students want reliability in the case of their security. Who’s extra cautious than New York Skaters?
Off-Third is WSN’s satire column.
It’s nearly the top of the semester, which implies that everybody’s cash is operating out, they usually’re all going out as a lot as they will. And whereas staying out all hours of the night time is enjoyable, particularly in comparison with finding out for finals, the journey again residence may not be. The restricted variety of accessible Protected Journey drivers and a flawed interface have left college students annoyed and, at occasions, hopeless. With a view to fight this, NYU has turned to essentially the most dependable group of individuals in New York Metropolis: skate boarders.
NYU has partnered with the New York Metropolis Division of Parks and Recreation so as to recruit skaters from completely different parks across the metropolis. If skaters will be within the metropolis’s parks after darkish and are available out unhurt, then clearly they know learn how to be protected.
“We’re proud to signify New York’s best — seems to be smart,” one Protected Journey skateboarder, who claims to know learn how to play guitar, boasted.
Including skaters, people who find themselves used to the streets, simply made sense. One security officer even described how they “added to the cool issue of NYU Campus Security.”
As soon as town’s parks are closed, the skaters are supplied free stick-and-poke tattoos and hand-rolled cigarettes in change for escorting NYU college students to their dorms late at night time. Greater than half of the skate boarders have taken up the deal, including lots of of alternatives for college students to really feel safe on their journey again to their residences.
These skaters are then given a harness, which connects them to a small crate that goes behind them. College students then sit in these crates and are safely escorted to their vacation spot. Sadly, just one scholar could trip in these carts at a time.
The lengthy wait occasions and defective purposes of the previous Protected Journey system are solely exacerbated by dangerous climate. Final weekend, because the rain poured down on the streets of New York Metropolis, the wait time for pickup was practically 4 hours lengthy.
One sophomore described that she received to the placement the place she was set to be picked up, however the pick-up time modified so many occasions that she was the sufferer of 47 pickpocket makes an attempt earlier than the automotive arrived. One other scholar described how they booked a trip that was stated to be quarter-hour away, however after they tracked the automotive on the app an hour later, they noticed that it was dropping individuals off at Newark.
Many are praising NYU for selling environmentally pleasant modes of transportation, however others are left just a little involved. They’re apprehensive that the smoke from the skate boarders’ cigarettes would possibly hurt these with preexisting lung situations.
To accommodate, Protected Journey is making an attempt to part in numerous different modes of transportation, together with curler skaters, hoverboarders and folks that do parkour on Citi Bikes.
The brand new program shouldn’t be an ideal resolution. Automotive accidents are all the time an inherent danger when skateboarding, particularly should you’re connected to a skateboarder by a rope. There have even been just a few experiences of Protected Journey automobiles colliding with Protected Journey skate boarders, with college students connected. Fortunately, solely about three dozen accidents have occurred for the reason that implementation of this system, which happened final night time.
Off-Third is WSN’s satire column.
WSN’s Opinion part strives to publish concepts price discussing. The views introduced within the Opinion part are solely the views of the author.
Contact Lily Ritterman-Peña at [email protected].