Attending WSU Vancouver requires reliable transportation, a tradeoff for the hefty price of on-campus living. Students who do not have a way to get to campus struggle to find alternate modes of transportation, and those who can drive themselves, suffer from expensive parking passes. With seemingly no perfect method to get to campus, C-TRAN’s new service, The Current, aims to solve the university’s lack of accessibility by creating an efficient and convenient form of on-demand transit.
Similar to popular rideshare services like Uber or Lyft, users can book a trip at any time in the operational hours up to two days in advance. The service introduces a new degree of timeliness and convenience, providing multiple types of vehicles including rides suitable for regular passengers, people who need to store their bikes and those with accessibility needs. The financial pain of transportation is specifically something The Current aims to combat with its services, a goal Taylor Eidt, senior project manager for C-TRAN, says will help students.
“The Current is a shared-ride service that utilizes branded C-TRAN vehicles, with a C-TRAN operator, that provides point to point trips within a defined service area. [The Current is] available 5:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. to anyone that would like to ride on that service,” Eidt said. “The service can be used for a wide variety of trips, whether that be going from your home to campus, or an apartment to the grocery store, a medical appointment or connecting with other C-TRAN fixed route services.”
Within the WSU Vancouver and Salmon Creek areas, trips can be booked anywhere in a specified boundary zone, which can be found on a digital map here. The map highlights trips to WSU Vancouver, iTech Preparatory, Salmon Creek Park and Ride and even the 99th Street Transit Center.
The Current is replacing the Connector, a service that has been in place at C-TRAN for nearly 20 years. The new service, which additionally expands into the Port of Vancouver, is a product of community feedback and a growing desire to meet the needs of C-TRAN riders.
“The service we’re launching is based on the feedback we’ve heard over the years of service with The Connector, which is very much that people want to be able to use the service to book trips when they need and they want to be able to do it in an accessible way that is more user-oriented,” Eidt said.
A huge benefit for the new service is pricing. According to Eidt, fares with The Current are the same as a local bus fare, just $1 for local fares and 50 cents for honored citizens or youth. For WSU Vancouver students, trips are free through the university-provided Hop Fastpass, regardless of time or distance traveled. Students can request a Hop Fastpass by contacting the Cougar Center at 360-546-9779 or emailing van.studentaffairs@wsu.edu.
The future is bright for The Current, with C-TRAN hoping to implement weekend routes later in 2022 and expand the range of service areas across the region to provide affordable and convenient transportation. Readers can book The Current’s services through the mobile application, by calling C-TRAN’s customer service at 360-695-0123 or visiting their website.
Andrew is a junior studying English and Digital Technology and Culture at WSU Vancouver.