By Pedro Cruz
When Heitor Cocentino, a senior finance student at the University of South Florida, joined an investment club every Monday on the Tampa campus, he did not know commuting would be a challenge. He also didn’t expect to spend three hours of his day trying to attend a student organization meeting.
“I used to take the 100 X and then the 29 buses,” Cocentino said. “It took about three hours of my day. I couldn’t get anything done on the bus because the internet was terrible. It was hot. I’d get motion sickness.”
Cocentino said he is going to take a required course in Tampa during the fall 2025 semester, a class not offered at the St. Petersburg campus.
While some majors are offered at the St. Petersburg campus, required courses are only available on the other side of the bridge.
“If my major is offered on the St. Pete campus, I should be able to take all my classes there,” he said. “I shouldn’t have to go to Tampa. Since it’s not our responsibility, it should be the university’s responsibility to provide transportation between campuses.”
According to the USF Office of Decision Support, 794 students from USFSP campus are taking classes in the Tampa campus. Currently, USFSP has 3,350 students on site.
Every semester, students at USF St. Petersburg pay a transportation fee. According to the administration, this fee allows students to use Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority buses, including the 100X and 300X routes to Tampa and the SunRunner bus to the beach.
However, for students like junior finance major Nathan Steen, those options don’t feel like enough.
“I’ve had to take some physics classes that were only offered there,” Steen said. “I do have a car. [I] probably spend $5 dollars per trip, and I go two to three times a week.”
Even with a car, the cost goes up. If Steen were to go to Tampa twice a week, he would spend around $80 per month.
“It’s annoying,” Steen said. “I’ve skipped class just because I didn’t have gas.”
Steen said he also remembers hearing promises on campus tours of intercampus access before enrolling.
“When I applied here, they said they were working on transportation three or four years ago,” Steen said. “They still haven’t changed that.”
Steen said he is upset about USF’s unmet promises.
“Don’t say you do it if you don’t,” he said. “It’s crazy. They’re lying to us.”
Currently, there’s no direct shuttle between campuses. The only public option, PSTA, requires transferring buses and significant wait times.
“It’s just a hassle,” Steen said. “Me having a car makes it easier, but it’s still not fair. Even if there was a bus that came twice a day, one in the morning [and] one at night, that would definitely open up more class opportunities for people.”
Other universities with multi-campus structures have found solutions.
Northwestern University, which operates campuses in Evanston and downtown Chicago, Illinois, provides a free intercampus shuttle for students, faculty and staff in a 28-minute travel.
The service runs regularly during the week and makes academic, extracurricular and social opportunities more accessible between campuses.
Models like Northwestern’s demonstrate that intercampus connectivity is both possible and valuable.
According to USFSP’s Student Government Chief of Staff Nicole Lobato, the issue of intercampus transportation has consistently been the top concern brought up by students.
“At the same time, it’s always thought to be too far out of reach,” Lobato said. “We have limited resources when it comes to finances, and this is a project that requires a lot of assistance from the actual school administration.”
In response, the student government is currently facilitating a transportation survey to collect data, a step that Lobato said is crucial to moving the issue forward.
“It was mentioned in city hall how the lack of data was the main issue behind the lack of attempts from admin to solve the issue,” she said. “So we aim to change that.”
The survey aims to gather at least 300 student responses and is being managed by the chancellor’s chief of staff.
“That was the number we discussed to be the minimum to make the school pay attention,” she said.
Lobato said she believes that implementing an intercampus shuttle could finally fulfill the promise of OneUSF.
“Right now, consolidation has just harmed St. Pete, and transportation could fix that,” Lobato said. “It would allow students to stay in St. Pete while taking their required classes in Tampa, increase the array of clubs available to join, and just offer a better university experience for everyone.”
As USF promotes itself as a unified multi-campus university, St. Petersburg students say they’re being left behind, with no direct access to Tampa courses, resources or events — a transportation promise they see as unfulfilled.