Published: Monday, May 4, 2009 in The Whitworthian.

It’s a familiar problem for many of us. You’re driving to Whitworth for class, or back from work. You turn onto campus (careful, it’s radar patrolled), and immediately find a parking spot and go on your merry way.

No, no, wait. That’s not it at all. You actually spend upwards of 15 minutes searching for a place to stick your car because unfortunately you arrived 60 seconds too late and every spot is gone.

Parking is fairly high on the list of concerns for students, and luckily for us the school seems to be taking it seriously, too. The latest in a series of efforts to solve the parking problem are ZipCars. No final decisions have been made, but starting next fall we might have a handy rental car system available to us on campus, according to Ed Kelly, director of Facilities Services.

“ZipCar estimates that for each ZipCar, 15 or more cars are taken off the road,” he said. “More importantly for us, [they’re] taken out of the parking lots.”

ASWU has also been discussing the idea.

“I think that ZipCar could be a good step for Whitworth,” Executive Vice President Kalen Eshoff said. “It would allow students access to cars who don’t have them, and eventually, may create a culture that doesn’t rely so much on individual car use, but moves more towards public transportation.”

It’s a good idea, at least in theory. You apply for the program and then reserve yourself a car when you need to run some errands. It’ll charge on an hourly basis (under $10 an hour), and when you’re finished you simply park the car where you found it and walk away.

The idea is that having the rental cars available will encourage students to leave their cars at home. And for many students, it might make sense. Owning a car is an expensive proposition. Even if you can get yourself a cheap clunker, insurance can sap your wallet dry. Certainly there are a few situations where owning your own transportation makes sense. For example, if you live any distance away from campus or work off campus it’s probably worth it.  But for many, the expense outweighs the benefits.
However, as convenient as it sounds, it’s not going to put much of a dent in the parking problem, because it’s going to end up being a catch-22.

On one hand, I don’t imagine a very high percentage of students deciding to leave cars at home just because rentals are available. Most students that live on campus (the target audience for this program) don’t have cars, Kelly said, and most of those that do have them, need them.

“About 47 percent of on-campus residents have cars,” he said.

While rental cars are nice for the occasional trip to the mall or to see family, they’re not a reliable source of transportation. Students who need daily transportation need their own car; even a student that needs a car on a semi-regular basis would probably opt for his or her own vehicle.

On the other hand, for the plan to be financially viable for Whitworth we’ll only be able to have a few rental cars on campus (probably two or three). If a sizable percentage of the student body decides to rely on ZipCars for transportation, having a rental fleet that’s only a few cars deep will cause bottlenecks and cars won’t be available when students need them. And when that starts happening, people could decide it’s just more convenient to have their own car.

The program is still a good idea. Having a rental car or two available for students who need a car in a pinch would be great. If you had car trouble and needed to get to the store, or if a friend was borrowing your car, or any number of reasons, having a ZipCar waiting in the wings to save the day would be awesome.

So I’m in favor of bringing this program to campus, but in the end it’s going to become more of a convenience program for students who need emergency transportation than anything else, and it’s not going to do much for the parking problem.