Conway Transit Infrastructure

Hendrix has an absurdly walkable campus. It takes about 8 minutes to walk from one side to the other, to get to any of your classes or the caf. This means, when living on campus, you can meet most of your basic needs within the bounds, regardless of whether or not you own a car. Nonetheless, on Saturday nights when the caf is closed, or if you get a hankering to buy something, you’ll want to leave campus by some means of transit.

Conway, like most towns in America that don’t cost $3,000 a month for rent, is primarily oriented toward car-based transportation. You can tell by looking at Harkrider, which it’s hard not to from most of campus. Unless you get lucky with an opportunity to jaywalk (which is difficult and dangerous with the roundabouts constantly shooting traffic out on all sides), the closest available crosswalks that weren’t put in by Hendrix are Oak on one side and Walmart on the other, over a mile apart. Hendrix’s solutions (which both expressly do not stop traffic), of the bridge and Harmonic Fugue, are interesting and fun to use, but considering that our campus was closed to the public during Covid, it might be prudent for the city government to put up a crosswalk somewhere else within that mile of road. Walking here’s not horrible though. The route to Walmart and Goodwill (which are right next to each other) takes about 20 minutes by foot and, if you do it right, part of it’s through the Nature Preserve. Nonetheless, if you’re trying to get out past Oak or the highway habitually, walking is impractical to a student who’s even moderately busy.

Lyft in Conway is a viable option. Wait times are moderate, better than Uber, around 10 minutes usually. However, around 8$ at least to UCA is much more than any public transit fare in the country, Conway’s included. As of October 24th, we have a public microtransit service, a government-run ride-share program. The app Rock Region Metro costs 2.00$ a person, with a $19.50 a month Student 31-Day Pass. However, wait times are much longer for it due to initial high demand, with hour-long-plus wait times not uncommon, especially during busy times of day. If you’re not in a hurry, though, it might work well for you, as it’ll take you basically anywhere in Conway you’d want it to, directly. To use, download the TransLoc app and scroll to the end of the “Rock Region Metro” section, and you can flag where you need to be picked up and where you need to be dropped off. If you need to get further than that, though, Conway does not have a bus network. The nearest stop connecting to the Little Rock bus network is in North Little Rock, which is an unmanageable distance unless you or a friend can drive to it. Hopefully, with the population just hitting 50,000, we will see more public transit options coming to Conway in the near future, but as of now there isn’t a reasonable method to get out of town without a car.

My favorite way to get around in Conway is bicycling. To get to the nearest Kroger, it takes about 15 minutes if you pedal slowly. If you don’t have one, do not fret. The library rents out bikes with names like “Rachel Carson” and “Angela Davis’’ to students free of charge. In addition, there is a student-run Bike Shop at 1399 Spencer Street open 4:30 - 6:00 PM Monday through Thursday. Markham Street, Washington Avenue, Hairston Street, and Siebenmorgen Road all have consistent bike lanes, and most surrounding roads are explicitly or functionally bikable. The big artery you should be on the lookout for is Tucker Creek, which takes you south from Tyler to UCA. No cars. There’s even a couple of water fountains available at playparks along the way in case you get parched. The best way to get on it is at Hairston, though, cars go pretty fast on Tyler. As of around a week ago, there was a fence in the middle of it, but hopefully it will soon be removed. It’s hoppable, but lifting a bike over it is very difficult. Ignoring transit around town, biking is also nice for lazily getting to class or the other side of campus in 2 minutes instead of 5, with less energy input. That’s a difficult offer to turn down, especially with the library giving them away. Don’t forget to wear a helmet, though!