Students without cars are utilizing alternative transportation options instead of remaining stranded in Moscow.
As the school year progresses, more students are taking advantage of Zimride and Zipcar at the University of Idaho.
“The two ride-sharing options include the Zimride, an online ride sharing program where people post where they need rides to and people with cars post where they are going,” said Rebecca Couch, Parking and Transportation services information specialist. “The other option is the Zipcar, which is a university service where students sign up to rent a car for an affordable price.”
Couch said the two Zipcars on UI’s campus have received a good amount of use from renters and she expects it to increase as the year continues.
“There are 43 members that have completed the Zipcar application,” Couch said. “Between the two cars, they have been driven 1,237 miles so far and been reserved a total of 165 hours.”
The two Zipcars that potential renters can sign up for are a Toyota Prius and a Mazda 3. Weekday prices are $8 per hour or $66 a day, and weekends are $9 per hour or $72 per day.
After completing the online application process for the Zipcar, members can utilize the nationwide program and use their Zipcar cards to unlock any Zipcar in the select cities linked to the program.
UI and Washington State University are partnered together on the alternative transportation options and are proving to be successful on both campuses.
“We provide three Zipcars for the WSU campus,” said Chris Boyan, WSU Parking and Transportation assistant director. “All three of which are gone almost every weeknight and weekend.”
Zimride has been growing in popularity at colleges in bigger cities and with the larger population base between WSU and UI, Boyan said it’s a better opportunity to connect for ride sharing.
“Car sharing like this is a lot more cost saving because you sign up only when you need a ride and it includes gas and insurance,” Boyan said.
Carl Root, director of UI Parking and Transportation services, said the services that provide the Zipcar and Zimride are good national programs that helped a lot with the marketing and promoting of their products.
Root said the Zimride started last spring semester and had a slower start, but this semester they are seeing a steady increase of members since advertisements and promotion of the online carpooling website increased.
“From the beginning of fall semester the number of members who signed up has increased from 189 from last spring to 516 members this year,” Couch said. “That’s a 63 percent increase just since the start of fall semester and we are pretty pleased with the way it has been going.”