Members of the university community will soon be able to hitch a ride home with students, faculty and staff from two local universities thanks to a recent partnership between area schools.
American University, George Mason University and this university are already using Zimride, a network that allows members to offer and request car rides from one another, on their own, but officials wanted to bring the schools together to expand the number of carpooling options and help students who live outside the state.
“This is about one-time trips,” Department of Transportation Services Assistant to the Director Beverly Malone said. “A lot of the students in this area go home to New Jersey and New York. A lot of students ask, ‘Can the bus stop some place else other than the main terminal?’ It really can’t. There are so many people that come from other states, but we really can’t stop elsewhere.”
Malone said the number of people signed up on this university’s own Zimride system has reached about 2,300.
Students from New York and New Jersey ordinarily have to turn to personal transportation or DOTS’ Thanksgiving, winter and spring break buses that drop passengers off only in New Jersey’s Metropark and New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. This option leaves homebound students who live outside the New York and New Jersey region out of luck, and those in the area with limited stops.
“Metropark and Port Authority are too far away from my house,” said sophomore letters and sciences major Morgan Drew. “The bus would still be useful, but it’s complicated.”
Reaching out to other universities will be especially convenient and cost-saving for those who come from areas that are less common for this university’s students.
“I don’t have the option of the [New York/ New Jersey. break transportation] bus,” sophomore communication and philosophy major Kaisha Baker said. “I live in Richmond, and most of the kids are not from there, so I’d definitely use Zimride. It’d be much cheaper than taking the Amtrak.”
While the universities are likely too far away from one another for students and faculty to take advantage of sharing daily commutes — American is in northwest Washington and George Mason is in northern Virginia — services could still be used for less frequent short-distance trips such as rides to the grocery store, said Chris O’Brien, director of sustainability at American.
“When you map out where people are coming from and going to, we might have students who live in College Park who are going to the grocery store,” he said. “If they see a University of Maryland student going to the grocery store, you can use [Zimride] for short trips ,too.”
O’Brien is hopeful about the partnership and said it is a move that can kill two birds with one stone.
“We’re glad to be linking up with other schools in the Washington region on a project that helps people save money and reduces carbon emissions but does it in a fun and social way,” he said.
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