Zipcars have been on the UMd College Park campus for several years now, and the one pictured in the article has been available to students (zip users) for about the same length of time.

Any other campuses use Zip Car and have a MINI?

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/new...uble-1.1551048

 

I am not aware of Zip Car until I read the article, but it is a neat concept and using MINIs as the car is really cool.

 

 

$9.25+ per hour on top of an annual fee? What a ripoff... Buy a cheap used bicycle to get across campus!

Not to mention I'd not do business with them after seeing the banner MCS Fever posted.

 

We had something similar in Austin, but it wasn't ZipCar and they definitely didn't have a Mini Cooper in the fleet. $25 + 9.25/hr is far cheaper than paying for insurance and parking at a lot of schools. Student parking for 1 year is $400-1000 depending on which parking lots you choose at UT. It's a rip-off if you need to drive to work everyday but if you live on campus, like I did, and don't have a car then it is a good solution. The service we had in Austin was nowhere near that cheap so I never joined it. I definitely would have if I could have parked on campus for free!

 

Nope not here. A&M has the largest campus in America and we have nothing of the sort. Well, free bus system that goes through the entire town, but no zip cars. Ive seen the SmartCars in austin that are pay as you go but I never understood how to use them.

 

Pretty cool. The only zip cars we have on campus are Scions XBs. Our campus is made so that you can walk to most of the main buildings so I never understood why you'd need one. Plus it's orange county. I've never met anyone that has taken the bus here, unless you take the campus shuttle for the gym or campus housing.

I have been seeing more Hydrogen Fuel Cell Rav4s for the engineering staff in use. And we are starting to open up a spot in each lot to charge plug in hybrids.

 

My niece in Chicago has used Zipcar a few times and she loves it. She has no need for a car most of the time but she has used it to come to Wi for family gatherings and for what she needs it beats paying for a car, insurance, parking, etc. I went to their website and it looks like when you're done you park it in the general vicinity of where you picked it up, let them know where it is and they let the next person know where to find it. They have a variety of different cars and they did list 1 MINI in the Chicago area. You wouldn't want to use it for an extended period, but when you only need a car once in a while it seems to make sense.

 

Jumping to conclusions?

You do realize that they probably use that banner for Gay Pride parades or other similar events, right? Many large companies do similar things for those events to show their support for the gay community. They're certainly not going around everywhere saying that MINIs are "gay".

 

Zipcar is intended for dense urban areas where parking is hard to come by and where there is suitable public transit for everyday needs. It's a great alternative for people that only need to use a car on rare occasions to "get out of the city" for a weekend trip, day trip, errands, etc. They offer hourly rentals and daily rentals that include gas & insurance. For example, here in downtown Boston you might spend $200-300 a month just for a parking spot.... add your monthly car payment, car insurance, gas, etc. and it gets very expensive to own a car. If you have good public transportation for daily use and only need to use a car a handful of times per month, this is a great option. Similarly, it is great for college campuses where students live on campus and there is little space for them to park cars on campus. If they only need to drive off campus a few times a month, this works very well.

Zipcar also has a fleet of "cool" cars that are fun to drive and have some personality... lots of MINIs, Prius, Mazda 3, VWs, BMW 3-series, etc. It's better than the typical rental car fleet made up of plain subcompacts.