Free membership to U-Car share program available now for staff, faculty, and students*

April 09, 2010

Dear Lewis & Clark Community,

Many of you may have already heard through students or from the Dean of Student and Chief Diversity Officer Celestino Limas about the exciting news that U-Car Share is coming to Lewis & Clark. Students, staff, and faculty will be able to rent a car to run errands, go to a local agency to volunteer, or for any other reason for as low as $4.99 per hour plus mileage.

We have heard for some time now from many of our community members that they would benefit significantly from having a car-sharing program on campus. The advantages to a car sharing program are many, from having reliable transportation that is available on demand to supplement the Pioneer Shuttle, to reducing the amount of cars people bring to campus, thus being able to lower an individual/organization’s carbon footprint.

Many of you may know the well-known brand, ZipCar. We have been negotiating with them about several requirements but one in particular was that drivers needed to be over the age of 21 in order to rent one of their vehicles. While this is not an issue for most of our Law and Graduate students, it does pose a significant burden on the majority of our Undergraduate students. Unfortunately, we have simply reached an impasse and they are unwilling to change their requirements. However, a second vendor has come forward with a proposal that we found very promising. The company is U-Car Share and they offer their car-sharing program at many schools including Portland State University, Linfield College, Virginia Tech, and UC-Berkeley. They made an outstanding proposal to us that includes the following:

• All drivers need only be 18 to rent a car rather than 21
• Rather than charge an annual membership, they will charge a one-time lifetime membership fee – and if you sign up as a member in the first four months, that fee is waived
• If you already have paid for a ZipCar membership, you can use that as your U-Car Share membership
• International students are allowed to rent vehicles with an international driver’s license rather than needing to acquire a U.S. license

Here are the details you will need to know about the program:

Who can participate in the program?

All students, staff, and faculty of Lewis & Clark are eligible to participate. 

How do I sign up?

Please follow this link to sign up starting today for free and enter the code Lewis&Clark (all one word and case sensitive) once you complete the registration form. Please note that when you register, your credit card will have a $5 charge placed on it (and then refunded) to verify that the credit card is valid. This code is for a value of $25, which covers your one-time U Car Share membership fee and will be active through May 15, 2010 but we will be offering this code at additional times during our initial program setup.

How do I rent a car?

Once you have registered, U-Car Share will mail you your membership card you will use to swipe in to the car. You won’t be able to rent a car without this, so register soon!

Where will the vehicles be located?

Our two cars will arrive on campus as early as Friday, April 16 and will have designated parking spaces across from Odell Hall on the CAS campus.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the U-Car Share program, please feel free to contact Jason Feiner, Director of Student Activities at jfeiner@lclark.edu or 503-768-7122.

Join today and share a better tomorrow!

Jeffrey A. Feld-Gore

Associate Dean of Students

*Note: An announcement about the U-Car share program originally ran in The Source on Friday, April 2, but was removed because the powers that be had not officially signed off on the details. Finally, we’ve signed on the dotted line so this news is Official.