Daylight savings hit earlier this month, leaving many students walking home in the dark as the USC Lyft Rides Program begins operation at 6 p.m. — about an hour and a half after the sun currently sets.
The program operates until 2:00 a.m. on the UPC Campus daily and from 5:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. on the HSC Campus daily. USC’s Department of Public Safety Chief David Carlisle said these hours were chosen based on demand.
But, as we approach the winter solstice, also known as the shortest day of the year, the sun will progressively set earlier each day. By December 21, it will get dark as early as 4:48 p.m.
“It would be nice if [the shryft program] started at four or five [on the UPC Campus],” said Naioth Abraham, a senior studying public relations. “It’s unfair that people have to walk home, or walk anywhere, when it’s that dark.”
Still, the university makes some changes to promote safety during daylight savings.
Security ambassadors, more commonly known as “yellow jackets,” began coming out two hours earlier after daylight savings, meaning they begin work at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m., according to Assistant Chief Carlisle.
In 2020, the program switched to individual free Lyfts because of pandemic health protocols. Then, in 2023, the program reverted back to shared Lyfts for students and faculty alike.
The free Lyft program replaced “Inside Campus Cruisers,” a long-time safe shared riding initiative that was created in 1978.
Megumi Tsujimoto, a first year master’s student at the Price School of Public Policy, said she doesn’t feel safe walking home now that it gets dark so early.
“Now sometimes I go to the village and wait until six,” Tsujimoto said. She said it would be convenient for her if the program started earlier.
“The hours of the USC Lyft Rides Program, which has been in place since 2016, have remained the same,” said USC transportation in a statement to Annenberg Media.
Some students have other concerns altogether, saying that having the free Lyfts be shared has only caused them inconvenience.
Bella Nguyen, a junior studying health promotion and disease prevention, said she stopped using the free Lyfts after they became shared.
“I don’t necessarily wish they started earlier, I would prefer them to allocate that money to making them back to not shared,” Nguyen said.
Students like Sasha Pchelintseva, a third year PhD student at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, say that they can’t utilize the free lyfts because they don’t live within the radius.
This leaves Pchelintseva to ride her bike that doesn’t have a light, or use public transportation to get home.
Nathan Phillips, a second year graduate student at the Keck School of Medicine, said, “I wish they’d expand the radius.”
“On the medical campus, the radius is very short, it doesn’t even go probably more than a mile,” Phillips, who rides his bike home, said. “[It] doesn’t help you if you live in a surrounded area, because you still have to walk in the dark.”
“It’s pretty unsafe, I tend to be looking over my shoulder, I find myself more anxious and scared,” Abraham said.