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Car sharing grows popular on campuses

By Anna Archibald

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

In the last few years, car rental and sharing has recently become an increasingly popular phenomenon. Zipcar, the nation’s largest community car sharing service, was founded in 2000 in Cambridge, Mass. Though the University of Kansas has not yet used the service, it has become increasingly popular on college campuses across the country.

Once Zipcar has secured a place to operate on a campus, it sets up anywhere from two to 18 cars for students and faculty to use and can add more as needed.

“Each Zipcar takes 14 privately owned cars off the street,” said Zipcar spokesman John Williams. “Zipcar is not a rental service, but rather an alternative to personally owned vehicles.”

To use one of the cars, students and faculty can register online for $35. They then receive the same amount of credit, making it virtually free for the first few uses. It can cost anywhere from $8 to $15 to reserve one of the cars, which Williams said was nothing compared to the cost of owning a car.

Once registered, members can reserve any model of car days or months ahead of when they need it by browsing through the online catalogue of cars available at their location. On the day they need it, members can go to the designated Zipcar location on campus and swipe their Zipcard on the lock to open it up. Once they are finished with the car, they take it back to the parking location and lock it by swiping their Zipcard again.

Members don’t have to worry about gas or insurance, either, as Zipcar pays for both.

“We want to make the service accessible to as many people as possible,” Williams said.

Donna Hultine, director of the department of parking & transit, said she was reluctant to meet with Zipcar representatives and was yet to be convinced Zipcar would help much at the University.

“I wouldn’t mind talking to them and considering it, but I don’t know what it would really do for students,” she said. “We’ve already covered the town with transit.”

She also said she had spoken with the car rental company, Hertz, about a similar car rental program, but didn’t feel as though she could commit to it right now.

The main goal of Zipcar on college and university campuses is to curb carbon emissions and relieve parking and traffic congestion. Zipcar already operates on more than 120 college campuses including Stanford, the University of Michigan and Arizona State University and most recently the University of Illinois and the University of Alabama.

Laura Whitney, Aurora, Neb., junior, said she saw the advantages of having a quick and easy way to reserve a car on campus without having to own one.

“It would leave more space open on campus and could be really convenient for students,” she said.

Students living off campus could also find uses for Zipcar.

Lindsay Dennison, Topeka senior, lives off campus and rides the bus to class everyday. She has a car, but only uses it on the weekends when running errands.

“It would be a great idea if you needed to be somewhere during the week and didn’t have a car on campus or if you had a car emergency,” Dennison said.

Whitney said she thought that after a while, people would be forced to start using public transportation for financial reasons and that a company such as Zipcar could be a good, environmentally friendly alternative to having a car on campus.

Despite the company’s rapid recent growth, Williams said Zipcar was still a relatively new phenomenon.

“We’re doing our best to educate campuses,” Williams said. ”But it will take time.”

— — Edited by Lauren Cunningham

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