Cal Poly Welcomes Zipcar Car Sharing Program to Campus

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif., Oct. 22, 2009 -- Cal Poly will welcome Zipcar, the world's largest car-sharing service, to campus today. The program will help the university reduce traffic congestion and demand for parking and further extend Cal Poly's commitment to sustainability while offering students and faculty a convenient, economical and environmentally friendly alternative to owning a car.

Cal Poly will have a formal launch event at Via Carta on the North Perimeter today from 9 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. A special press event will run from 10 a.m. - 11a.m. Students and faculty will have a chance to sign up for membership, learn more about the program and see how the technology works.

Four self-service Zipcars - two Toyota Priuses and two Scion XBs - are available for use 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The cars are located in reserved spaces in the A-1 parking lot and the H-2 parking lot. Faculty, staff and students 18 and older may participate in the program. Gas, maintenance, insurance and reserved parking are included in hourly and daily rates.

The Zipcar membership costs $35 per year, and members can drive for as little as $8 per hour or $66 per day on weekdays and $9 per hour or $72 per day on weekends. Students, faculty and staff get $35 in free driving credit as part of a launch promotion.

Local San Luis Obispo residents 21 and older can join for $75 ($25 one-time application fee and $50 annual fee). All members 21 and over have access to Zipcar's network of more than 6,500 vehicles throughout North America and the UK.

In the last two years, the number of students living on campus has doubled with the opening of Poly Canyon Village. At the same time, high gas prices and increased on-campus parking costs have students and employees looking for alternatives to bringing a car to campus. Bicycles, van pools, mass transit and now Zipcar's car-sharing program provide those alternatives.

"Bringing Zipcar to campus offers our campus community a cost-effective, convenient and environmentally friendly alternative to their cars," said Susan Rains, Commuter Services coordinator at Cal Poly. "Investing in alternative transportation is one facet of our overall approach to sustainability, and we're proud to partner with Zipcar to provide our community with a versatile alternative to personally-owned vehicles."

According to Zipcar, for students the service offers the freedom of car ownership without the associated costs of owning an automobile. Like buying music by the song, today's students immediately see the benefit of paying for a car by the hour. They also love saving hundreds of dollars per month on car payments. They see Zipcar - which is consistently ranked alongside other leading brands such as Google, Apple and Twitter - as a brand that understands them. Best of all, Zipcar provides insurance to students as young as 18.

"Zipcar is a perfect solution for universities, given that most people who live and work on campus don't need a car full time," said Matthew Malloy, vice president of Global University Operations for Zipcar.

For universities, Zipcar offers a practical and proven solution to managing parking demands, reducing congestion and emissions and adding a lifestyle-oriented service to campus. Each Zipcar replaces 14 personally-owned vehicles, so Cal Poly's four Zipcars can reduce the need for about 56 parking spaces.

Cal Poly is among the more than 140 colleges and universities that have partnered with Zipcar to reduce traffic, noise and parking demands, including MIT, Columbia, Georgetown, Arizona State University, University of Michigan, Harvard, USC, University of Minnesota, University of Toronto, University of North Carolina, The University of Chicago, and UCLA.

More information about Zipcar at Cal Poly, including the online member application, is available at www.zipcar.com/CalPoly.

About Zipcar

Zipcar is the world's leading car-sharing service with 325,000 members and 6,500 vehicles in urban areas and college campuses throughout 28 North American states and provinces as well as in London, England. As a leader in urban transportation, Zipcar offers more than 30 makes and models of self-service vehicles by the hour or day to savvy city residents and businesses looking for an alternative to the high costs and hassles of owning a car in the city. More information is available at www.zipcar.com.