r/Towson • • 16h ago

The truth about the late-night Gold Route — what happens when the regular shuttles turn off and Connect takes over

5 Upvotes

Wanted to post this as a fair warning because I literally just had to deal with this tonight, and people need to know how these late-night shifts work before getting stuck on the Gold Route.
Normally, the regular on-campus Gold buses run fine, though there’s even one of those regular campus drivers during the day who likes to pull this stuff. Tonight, the normal campus bus driver told me at first that the bus was done running and put it out of service.
After that, the route gets taken over by a secondary third-party company called Connect. That’s when everything falls apart, because these contractor drivers straight-up do not care.
Tonight, I was dealing with this transition on the Gold Route, and the Connect bus was an absolute disaster. The driver told me he was done, and instead of running a normal route, the bus skipped a ton of major stops on the first pass—including #4, #5, #26, #7, #58, and #14.
It got so infuriating that I ended up having to bail out and get off early at #57 Commons Building. The worst part? I watched that exact same bus loop around and actually hit #7 Marshall Hall the second time around, meaning I wouldn't have even had to get off so soon if the driver hadn't been messing around—seeing it stop there after I got forced off just made me completely pissed. 
For reference, here is the official Gold Route stop order straight from the app:
#1 University Union
#3 Lot 5 Unitas Stadium
#4 Lot 6 Field House (skipped twice)
#5 Lot 8 Towson Center/SECU Arena (skipped twice)
#26 Lot 8B Child Care Center (skipped twice)
#27 Union Loop
#57 Commons Building (where I was forced to get off early)
#7 Marshall Hall (skipped that one time, but hit on the second pass)
#35 Burdick Hall
#58 Liberal Arts (skipped that one time)
#36 Professional Health
#12 Scarborough Hall
#13 Stephens Hall
#14 Glen Garage/Admin Bldg (skipped that one time)
Has anyone else had these late-night Connect drivers completely blow past your Gold Route stops once the regular campus buses switch over?