Just five months after its revival, the Bulldog Express has grown enough to show its potential for Fresno State students in the coming years.

The shuttle service connects students who live in the surrounding student apartments to the campus. It has six stops at Campus Pointe, the Save Mart Center parking lot, the south gym, the student athlete village, Bulldog Village and frat row. It runs Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and on Fridays from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.

According to the university website, the project costs about $950,000 a year and comes out of student fees.

Some worry that the bus service hasn’t been a worthwhile addition to the campus, and there are reasons as to why it hasn’t looked very useful from an outsider’s perspective.  

The first week of February saw 506 riders, the second saw 607, the third saw 520 and the fourth saw 573. While this doesn’t show substantial growth, Derek Brantley, Fresno State’s parking and transportation manager, believes more communication can solve that.

“We just need time,” Brantley said. “We had buses on the ground operating the first week of November, which is not a full month of classes. That rolls right into finals time, where there’s less people on campus.”

Brantley also mentioned that January isn’t a full month, either, and that the February numbers should show the growth that it will continue to have.

“In a perfect world, we like to roll things out prior to a fall semester so you have all summer to let all the incoming freshmen know what’s going on,” Brantley said. “Our Dog Days table will have information on this, but we didn’t have that based on when it was rolled out.”

Brantley believes that once more new students come to campus, they will see it as a valuable resource, and the shuttle service will see more growth, ideally to what it was before the university cut its funding in Spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another reason for its lack of usage could be a misunderstanding of how it can be used. Nellie Chobanyan, Associated Students, Inc. senator for parking and transportation, conducted a survey of 130 students that touched on this topic.

“Students are complaining about not finding parking that’s close enough to their classes, yet they are indicating a willingness to walk five to 10 minutes onto campus,” Chobanyan said. “With the shuttle service, we would eliminate those five to 10 minutes that are being wasted walking to campus.” 

Chobanyan believes that it isn’t a convenience problem, it’s more of an information problem, and that if more commuters knew that they could use it this way, it would get more ridership.

Diego Barriga, a junior film and media arts major, said he uses the shuttle four times a week to save money on gas.

“It’s convenient,” Barriga said. “I get dropped off at school and I don’t have to look for parking. So that’s pretty cool. Honestly, I don’t have a parking pass so I have to pay at the meters, so it’s cool to not pay at the meters.”

Kimberly Marquez, a senior film and media arts major, uses the shuttle to commute from her apartment near Campus Pointe to the Fresno State campus.

“I think there should be more students in this, and it breaks my heart that there’s not, because it’s so convenient,” Marquez said. “But then again, a lot of people don’t really know about it.”

The Bulldog Express has only been back for a short period of time, but once students learn more about this way of safe and free transportation, Brantley says it should get back up to speed.

“We’re just getting started,” Brantley said. “This is by no means the end of the story.”