Carpooling: A New Solution to Campus Congestion
Matthew Doubrava | January 27, 2006 03:11 PM | Link
Getting to campus and other destinations may become easier and cheaper for KU faculty and students. The University of Kansas Parking Department plans to offer a carpooling system at the start of the 2006 fall semester.
Margretta de Vries, Administrative Specialist at KU, said, “We have had a few inquiries from non-traditional and commuter students regarding the possible implementation of a carpool or ridesharing program over the past several years.”
The service will be run by the parking department and will be directly tied to the sale of parking permits. The department will issue a designated carpool permit to the vehicles involved.
Carpoolers will have to fill out a form to sign up for the permit at the beginning of the semester. The department may require vehicle information as well. Designated carpool vehicles may be assigned some sort of tag or sticker, but de Vries said it is still too early to announce anything.
Specific details about the system are not completely determined yet, but they will be posted on the Parking Department website as soon as they are available.
“We are currently in the preliminary stages of determining what the guidelines are for how a carpool program would be conducted, and do not know the exact details yet,” de Vries said.
The department does know they will not be responsible for placing people into the same carpool group. People must know the other members of their group.
“We’re not in the business of putting people together,” de Vries said.
The parking department website currently uses a link to AlterNetRides.com, an online registry used to bring people with the same destinations and transportation needs together. The department pays a nominal fee to AlterNetRides, but the service is free for faculty and students.
“While investigating carpool or rideshare programs at other universities,” de Vries said, “we were referred to the AlterNetRides web site by another Big 12 school.” That school is the University of Texas. AlterNetRides is a program that the parking department will use in conjunction with their new carpooling system. By registering with AlterNetRides, faculty and students can locate people with the same destinations.
One concern the department has is the issue of privacy and safety when dealing with strangers over the internet. The AlterNetRides service does not require personal information like street addresses and student identification.
The goal of the carpooling system will be to alleviate traffic and overall vehicle presence on campus. Donna Hultine, Director of Parking at KU, said, “I’m interested in giving people a whole lot of options.” Hultine said that the new Park and Ride lot and carpooling system will help the problem of “congestion” on campus.
The department said they will begin construction of the new Park and Ride parking lot on west campus sometime in February. They expect the lot to be completed and functioning before classes begin in August of 2006.
The new carpooling system in correlation with AlterNetRides could prove to be an ideal solution to people who need to get to campus and home everyday.
De Vries said, “It will be a way for them [students and faculty] to reduce their cost of traveling to and from the university, especially through sharing the cost of gasoline, reduced car maintenance requirements and the shared cost
www.parking.ku.eduhttp://www.alternetrides.com http://www.ku.edu