CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Students at Texas A&M University-Kingsville are finding themselves stuck, many of them say popular ride-share apps are almost impossible to book in the area.
"I was stuck there, I didn't have a ride home," said Christian Kromer, a freshman at Texas A&M-Kingsville. He said he tried ordering a ride through Uber, then Lyft, and once he realized there were no drivers in his area, he took matters into his own hands.
"So there is no one in the Uber app to take me so I had to walk," Kromer said.
The ride-sharing apps are a convenient alternative to taxi services and more flexible than public transportation. But now, other students are also struggling with the same issue, some of them sit through longer than average wait times to only get as far as confirming a ride with a driver.
"I've tried ordering an Uber and it took 20 minutes just to find out there were none in the area," said Zachery Torres, a student at the university.
Local small businesses are also feeling the hit.
Tom Difrancesca owns the Novel Blend Bookstore in downtown Kingsville. He believes students would visit downtown more often if they had an easier way of getting there.
"I hear the kids talking all the time when they are in here having coffee and reading books and they say, 'what is with Uber, what is with Lyft, how come there is nobody down here,'" said Difrancesca.
Kromer has to rely on friends to get around town.
"I feel like we should push the motion that we need more Ubers out here, especially in a college town," Kromer said.
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