Gettin' Involved

While browsing on the Internet for things to strike my muse for this entry, I came upon this article in the Stanford Daily from October 2004.  In a quick summary, it is a report of the car-sharing experiment at Stanford during the school year.  The experiment did not fare as well as expected, presumably because of the campus setting and range of student users.  Those without cars received rides from friends, or rented a car from a normal place for longer trips instead of utilizing the program.  On the other hand, the article also mentions the success of the car-sharing program at UC Berkeley. 

 

The article claims that the community-integrated campus is more accepting of car-sharing programs.  Being a big supporter of creating a similar program for Oxy, this comment made me think: would a car-share program really work on Occidental's campus?  Considering Oxy's, well, bubble mentality within the surrounding Eagle Rock area, and assuming car-share success must include an involved community, I began to think that perhaps car-share is not the way to go for a greener Oxy.  The only close surrounding community Oxy has is off-campus students, many of which already have their own cars.  Another point that came to me is that since about 2/3 of the students already have cars, would any of them be willing to give up this freedom to share?  Driving is not only about convenience: there is a mental aspect in which humans have a desire to be in control and have the personal space that a car provides.  After dwelling on this unfortunate thought for a while, I came to the conclusion that perhaps bike racks and bike sharing would be the way to go.  The weather is nice enough in L.A. to ride often, and it provides exercise while doing daily errands.  I believe that if Oxy put money into building more convenient, safe bike racks, biking would explode more than car-sharing ever would.  And if you need to get farther off campus, there's always the 1400 or so students who can drive you.

Comments

[Amanda R]

I agree with the sentiments in this blog, however, usually those with cars are off and about and those without cars can hardly ever find them. It is important to learn patience, it is a good virtue. So, car sharing would be good to a certain degree. The cars could easily be trashed. As you can tell I am somewhat torn on the matter.

[Lilia Roldan Pharazyn]

I agree with Emily on the car-sharing issue. As much as I think it would be beneficial for Oxy to instate such a program, I have many doubts as to whether or not it would work. I think the first main step is to get the school to have bike-sharing program. The logistical aspects opf the car-sharing program are many. We should see if Oxy is first willing to buy some bikes before we go ask them for cars.

[Sally Tracy]

Although I think it is valuable to compare the relative the successes of car share programs at other schools. I think we also must take into consideration the location of our school. Los Angeles is a "driving city." Unlike Berkley or Palo Alto, Los Angeles is not particularly bike friendly. Although I am in total support of increasing the facilities for students who wish to bike on campus, I also think that starting a car share program is an experiment that is worth a shot. Even if our school was not to have an official car share program, there should be support for students to get together with friends to invest in a car that could be used communally. It would be valuable if our school was to encourage this kind of arrangement by providing the resources for students to look for used cars to share among their friends or by setting up an opportunity for students to learn about the value of this alternative, even if it was just an event raising consciousness about the feasibility of this kind of arrangement.

[Parisa Vassei]

Although I agree that many people feel a need to have a car and that control is one reason behind it, I do think car-share programs may be more feasible than we'd think... They're definitely worth a try, if nothing else. As for bike racks, it's definitely a good idea but there must also be efforts made in making the campus more accesible using bikes. For example, I'm not sure if the hill that spirals down from Norris would make a good, safe biking environment for a student already carrying a backpack. Then again, I'm not a good biker, so I may be wrong (hopefully). I feel that both are worth a try. In testing out these different approaches, it will be much easier to come to a solution sometime in the near future.