Bus route shakeup adds more Swift Avenue service

One semester into Duke boasting the new Swift Avenue Shuttle and C1: East-West Express, the University is tweaking the routes. 

For the first time since Duke purchased the apartments at 300 Swift, the Swift Avenue bus route will provide continual weekday service and occasional weekend service from 300 Swift to the West Campus bus stop throughout the day. In previous semesters, the Swift Avenue Shuttle stopped running from 2:00-6:00 p.m. before resuming in the evening. 

On weekends, the C1: East-West will detour after leaving the East Campus Quad to make hourly westbound stops at 300 Swift approximately nine minutes after the hour, from 9:09 a.m. until 11:09 p.m. 

Additionally, the C1X route has been modified to stop at the intersection of Campus Drive and Swift Avenue in both directions. The Chronicle previously reported that Parking and Transportation Services was deliberating a route modification.

The changes take effect Jan. 8.

Additional service to the 300 Swift apartment complex comes after numerous concerns students have raised in recent years regarding safety. 

“Sometimes I come back from the library around 1 a.m. It is really scary walking up the hill on Campus Drive in the pitch dark with no security guard around," then-sophomore Giselle Vargis told The Chronicle when the route was first introduced in 2017. "I think this should be changed especially since there have been unfortunate incidents in the same area last year."

There were two arrests along Swift Avenue in Fall 2016 before Duke had purchased the complex. In November 2016, an individual reported that she was sexually assaulted and robbed at knifepoint at 10 a.m. while walking along Swift, and a suspect was arrested weeks later.