By Lexi Jezina, Special to The Chronicle
While Hofstra has a large group of local students, others, including myself, come from a far distance away. I live on the other side of the country, in Southern California, and last week was expecting the worst traffic and crowds. The Thanksgiving season brings the largest amount of travelers by plane out of the entire year.
But aside from the long flight and wait time at JFK airport, my Wednesday classes were canceled and the usually burdensome trip to the airport became easy due to the Hofstra shuttle service to JFK.
Getting to the train station, hopping onto the LIRR and transferring to the air train to JFK around the holiday season takes an hour and a half. But the Wednesday before Thanksgiving last week, Hofstra offered three buses to the airport this year, leaving at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m.
I had a late flight at 8 p.m. but decided to take the 3 p.m. bus to avoid any travel inconveniences. The shuttle was an easy choice since the last time I tried going to JFK, the air train tracks were on fire, causing me to miss my flight. Though unlikely to reoccur,especially in last week’s rain, I was not in the mood to deal with even the slightest potential of burning train tracks again.
Compared to taking public transit, the bus only took 20 minutes to get to the airport, and 15 minutes to drop everyone off at the different terminals. I was completely shocked that the bus got to the airport with very little traffic during one of the most traveled days of the year. Which brings me to my point: why does Hofstra only offer direct trips to JFK one day of the year? With winter break coming up in only three weeks, I think Hofstra should offer direct buses to the airport on the 19th when finals end, too.
Honestly, with our tuition so high I think Hofstra students deserve the chance to avoid inconveniences with mass transit and use a service that takes them directly to the airport during hectic holiday travel times. For Hofstra students from far away like me, a round-trip ticket from JFK to LAX ranges from $450 to $700 and is usually on the more expensive side during the holidays. With those high costs in mind, I think I deserve to save the time and money it takes to get to the airport using the LIRR. I’m a college freshman and am in no way rolling in dough. I’ll put those ten dollars to good use, like spending it on overpriced, processed airport food for my long flight or buying more winter clothes so I can survive my first winter in New York.
If Hofstra can offer a service to those of us who travel long distances during Thanksgiving, we should also be included during “the most wonderful time of the year.” So Hofstra, if you really love the small group of folks who don’t live on the East Coast, show some holiday spirit by offering buses to the airport on the last Monday of the semester. And please make later buses available; my last final ends at six.