Students needing a safe passage home late at night may find themselves choosing between driving and walking escort services next semester.
Alarmed by the recent number of incidents of crime in the Cambridge area, the Radcliffe Union of Students has proposed a walking service to supplement the present system.
"The driving escort service is often quite overloaded with calls, and students frequently wait for long periods of time to be taken home," said RUS co-chair Minna M. Jarvenpaa '93. "Waiting for the escort service alone at night is just as unsafe as walking."
Jarvenpaa also said the current escort service doesn't operate for long enough hours. "Since the escort service only runs until 2:30 a.m., many students are walking home unsafely after this time," she said.
RUS is currently raising funds to support their proposal that three teams of escorts be stationed on campus--one at the Quad, one in the Yard and one by the Charles River. Student escorts would be guided by The service will be closely linked to that ofthe police department and will be accessed throughthe same dispatcher. The walking escorts will alsobe able to go places that cars cannot, forinstance, to doors in the Yard. RUS estimates predict that if walking escortsare paid work study wages, the cost of running theprogram next semester will be $15,000, excludingexpenses such as walkies-talkies. RUS member Kate Hanify '93 said, "RUS's goal isthat the walking service will become aHarvard-Radcliffe student organization, enablingit to receive money through the UndergraduateCouncil or the University itself." Hanify said that the council has been"extremely supportive" of the proposal thus far.She said she hopes that the service will "enablestudents to not need to worry about safety oncampus." A similar walking escort service that relied onstudent volunteers failed during the 1989-90academic year when it failed to attract anadequate number of volunteer escorts
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