It’s an age-old conundrum for students: what is the quickest and cheapest way of getting to class? At San Diego Mesa College, variety abounds.
Chemical Engineering major Connor Wicker, 26, commutes to class by car. Wicker said he beats much of the traffic by arriving ahead of Mesa’s morning rush. Even so, he said his experiences with finding parking were terrible.
Dr. Mark Malebranche, an adjunct nurse for Mesa Student Health Services, also drives to campus. However, Dr. Malebranche tends to arrive at different times of day, sometimes between parking rushes. In his experience, parking is still pretty tight. “Sometimes,” he said, “you have to hunt for a space.”
Human Development major Rachel Million, 19, drives herself to campus. Her commute to Mesa is roughly 25 minutes, but said that Mesa’s parking situation is “worse than awful.” Million has a class to catch at another campus after her morning course at Mesa, so finding a spot by her classroom can take up to 40 minutes.
Art History major Francisco Rodriguez, 24, takes roughly 45 minutes to arrive at Mesa via a combination of biking and riding the bus. While parking is less a problem with a bike, he commented that Mesa is not as accessible for bikes as it could be. While Francisco takes his own wheels to class, he’s had some positive experience with the ride-share bikes — as well as with Mesa’s newly acquired Birds.
Bird ride-share scooters, which descended in Hitchcockian fashion upon San Diego last January, now pepper the sidewalks and street corners of Mesa’s perimeter. Rodriguez found the scooter service to be reasonably priced.
Millions had also used the Bird scooters, but she thought that the cost outweighed any convenience. “It adds up quickly,” she told the Mesa Press.
Miracle Miller, 18, is a Criminal Justice major who carpools to class. Miller said that the bike and scooter services looked convenient for people trying to save gas money. Photography Major Alexandria Serrano, 19, also carpools to Mesa. To Serrano, the Bird scooters appeared to be a nice alternative to taking the bus.
Dr. Malebranche remarked that while he wasn’t the target audience for Bird scooters, he hoped they were benefiting students. The service intrigued him. He added that if he could have his way about getting to Mesa, he’d like to see a more reliable and accessible public transportation system in the area. As opposed to a bus every 20 to 30 minutes, for instance, Dr. Malebranche would like to see one at least every 10 to 15.
Whatever the next wave of indie-startup or public transportation funding may bring, one thing is certain: students will continue to do whatever it takes to pave their way to the next phase of their education.
With tight schedules and so many places to be — from clocking in at a day job to picking up the kids from school — they will continue strategizing their way into Mesa’s parking spaces or securing their bikes to racks, adapting to the fluctuating pace of community college life.
