After a long day of activities and partying, some students choose to sleep in their own bed. So they set off to Central Station – on foot, because there are no shuttle buses between the university campus and the station this year either. For many visitors, this can mean an hour’s walk home.
Waiting for the bus
After the evening programme, you can take the bus to an after party at the various associations, but things don’t always go to plan. On Monday evening Evert wanted to return to Leiden and got on the bus at the Kuip which takes Eureka Week visitors to other parties. ‘I heard that a bus was going to café De Beurs in the centre, so I got in. Half an hour later, I was still waiting for it to leave. Apparently, the bus only goes when it’s full. So I got out and took the tram instead.’ Being independent is a vital requirement at EUR, but many students aren’t keen on using their own bike or borrowing a public transport bike. ‘It’s not practical if you’ve got a bike, you have to keep it with you all day. Obviously, you don’t usually return to the place you started, so your bike is somewhere else,’ Evert tells EM.
No metro trains, just trams
Committee members Cas Walter and Aimée Tilmans confirmed that the bus didn’t leave immediately. ‘We hired seven buses to take people to the student associations on Monday evening. This year our evening programme was at the Kuip and no metro trains go there. A tram can take 200 people and the association minibuses often only take nine people, so we hired buses to get a couple of thousand people to their destination,’ says Walter.
‘And you’re right, on Monday evening the buses didn’t leave for the centre immediately, but we changed this after people complained. We wanted the buses to leave full, but eventually we instructed the drivers that they could leave when they were half full,’ says Tilmans. But a survey of students revealed that there was a demand for a shuttle bus which stops between the campus, Blaak and Central Station several times. ‘Most of the parties were in or around the centre, and I’m sure that if you asked at the student associations whether you can get a lift to Central Station, they would oblige,’ Tilmans concludes.
