By KELLY KULTYS
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
It was just after 8 p.m. on Monday evening when Alyssa Marino, FCRH ’15, left her last class of the year at Lincoln Center. She walked up to the Ram Van stop, just a few blocks away. She stood there for a few minutes before she realized something was wrong – the 8:30 ram van she planned to take was running a few minutes late.
“We ended up leaving around 8:38,” Marino said. She said her driver called in to the dispatcher who told the driver to warn the passengers that this trip could take two hours. This was their chance to get off.
“We all thought ‘no way this would take two hours,’” Marino said, as she and 13 others packed into the van. And it did not.
“It took three hours and twenty minutes just to get to the [George Washington] Bridge,” Marino said.
Marino described the drive as “inching forward” as soon as they pulled away from the curb.
“An hour and a half went and then we could see the [George Washington Bridge] and a bunch of red lights,” Marino said.
Marino’s ride ended up taking about three and a half hours for her to get back to Rose Hill. Her ride was not the worst one of the night though. Driver Madeline Danza, GSB’14, said she had one of her worst experiences that night.
“During rush hour that day, due to emergency construction on the GW Bridge, vans were taking at worst 5 and a half hours to get from Lincoln Center to Rose Hill,” Danza said.
A normal trip is not usually too hectic according to Danza.
“During morning and evening rush hour, vans can take anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour to get form Rose Hill to Lincoln Center, or vice versa,” she said.
Earlier in the week, however, two upper-bound left lanes were closed to fix structural damage on the bridge, causing massive traffic delays throughout the area.
“Something like this is very uncommon, and also very frustrating to deal with,” Danza said. “We were telling passengers to think about other alternatives for getting from Lincoln Center to Rose Hill, since the trains would take a quarter of the time that vans were taking.”
But many students, like Marino, did not heed the advice Ram Van was offering. The office took to Twitter to discourage anyone else from taking the vans.
“For how long vans are taking coming uptown, you can watch the entirety of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King… take the D train,” one tweet read.
Another said: “Special shout out to Sara Jackson, who left LC at 5pm and returned at 10pm. Way to set a new record! 5 hours!”
For the most part, at least on Marino’s van, students handled the situation well.
“When we got off, we applauded the driver,” Marino said.
Ram Van advises students to always check their twitter (@FordhamRamVan) for updates, even though traffic has gotten better throughout the week.
