Alternative Transportation

Earlier this month, nearly sixty people turned out for the WFU Campus / Community Bike Ride.  The event was designed to increase bicycle awareness on and off-campus, and to draw attention to the need for improved bicycle and pedestrian corridors between WFU and downtown Winston-Salem.

The event was the result of a collaborative effort among several campus and community organizations.  The WFU Institute for Public Engagement was the primary financial supporter, and the WFU Office of Academic Advising and Sociology Department spearheaded organizational efforts at Wake Forest.  Three community groups, Winston-Salem Community Bike Ride, WS Greenways, the Winston-Salem Bicycle Cooperative, donated their time and organizational resources to make the event a success.

And what a success it was!  Undergrads, graduate students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members were all represented.

The event kicked off with words of welcome from Matthew Burczyk, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for Winston-Salem, and one of the organizers of the Winston-Salem Community Bike Ride.  After a quick refresher on bicycle safety, the group headed down the trail to Reynolda Village, past the Reynolda House, through Graylyn, and then through beautiful Buena Vista.  A quick free-ride down Runnymede, and then a slow climb up Glade and Fourth Streets led us to Caffe Prada, where everyone enjoyed free gelato from Caffe Prada (thank you, Institute for Public Engagement!).

The organizers hope that the WFU Campus / Community Bike Ride will be an annual event, but for those who cannot wait for more community biking, the best bet is to join up with the weekly Winston-Salem Community Bike Ride.  The group meets every Sunday at 3:00 P.M. at Caffe Prada, and each week explores a different bike routes throughout Winston-Salem. The rides, typically 8 – 10 miles, are open to everyone regardless of age or skill level.

Contributed by Catherine E. Harnois, Associate Professor of Sociology

Photo courtesy of Bill Petrie Jr.

Zimride is a ride-sharing program that has harnessed the networking capacities of social media infrastructure to facilitate carpooling. While ride-sharing is a familiar concept, the Zimride program is quite different than the more classic variety of ride-sharing programs that inevitably involves a bulletin board and spidery strings of yarn.

Zimride began to reinvigorate ideas about ride-sharing in 2007 when they first launched the program at Cornell University and University of California Santa Barbara, the alma maters of the two co-founders, Logan Green and John Zimmer (not the source of the Zim in Zimride). The two figured that a ride-sharing network specific to a single college campus could ensure that users were heading to the same places and would relieve the anxiety of traveling with complete strangers. The program proved a huge success in Ithaca and Santa Barbara and has since spread to 125 college campuses and 350,000 users. It is now the largest ride-sharing community in the country, helping to fill the 70-80% of seats on American highways that typically go empty.

In August, Wake Forest became one of the 125 campuses to adopt Zimride. Andrew Smith of the Office of International Affairs is among many to have joined the network here. Upon creating a Zimride profile, Andrew connected with Kyle Denlinger, a fellow staff member living three houses down from his own. Now the pair carpools several times a week, taking turns behind the wheel. Andrew also added that through Zimride he had the unexpected benefit of finding a cat sitter.

Zimride not only facilitates commutes but also long-distance trips. If you’re heading home this fall or for Thanksgiving break check Zimride before you depart. The only account required is a Wake Forest email and if you have a Facebook account, you can find users within that network as well. Finding a travel companion, saving money on gas and reducing your carbon footprint has never been so easy.

By Joey DeRosa Communications and Outreach Intern

Ready to sign up? Click here.

For more information click here.

Photo courtesy of zimride.com

Wake Forest University’s alternative transportation options have expanded over the summer with the addition of Zimride, an online ride-sharing network.  Zimride works by connecting drivers who have extra seats with riders going to the same destination or somewhere else along the way.  Drivers and riders connect via Zimride’s website or Facebook page, where drivers can list their destination and the number of seats available and riders can book a seat in a car headed in the right direction.  Cost-sharing arrangements are made by ride-sharers up front before the departure date.  Zimride is an excellent way to offset costs for all kinds of trips, but is especially useful for students traveling to and from campus for breaks, like Thanksgiving break, fall break, and winter break.

Wake Forest students can also use Zimride to connect with students at nearby universities who have similar travel paths.  Zimride is an economically prudent choice for drivers, who can save 75% on travel costs by sharing a ride with three passengers, and for riders, who can save the cost of a plane, train, or bus ticket.  Many Zimride users report extremely positive experiences, like meeting people who become close friends or even significant others (remember When Harry Met Sally?) by using Zimride.

Both Zimride and Zipcar, the car-sharing option on campus, are part of the collaborative consumption movement. Collaborative consumption uses online network technologies to strengthen our communities and to use goods and services more efficiently through shared access and direct exchange.  By using Zimride, students can reduce the total impact of our campus community on the environment, help one another by sharing travel costs, and get to know each other better on the road back and forth to Wake Forest.

To join our ride-sharing network, visit  http://www.zimride.com/wfu.  To join our car-sharing network, visit http://www.zipcar.com/wfu.

If you could reduce pollution, have a healthier planet, and shave more than $800 off the cost of your annual commute, would you? To English professor Michelle Balaev and Classics professor, Mary Pendergraft, the answer was a resounding “Yes!”

Balaev and Pendergraft became the first registered carpool in the university’s history on the Reynolda Campus last fall when they joined forces to make their 62 mile round-trip commute more enjoyable, sustainable, and affordable. In addition to the financial benefits, carpooling reduces fuel consumption, which translates into fewer greenhouse gas emissions and a smaller carbon footprint for the professors. Balaev and Pendergraft cut their combined fuel use by 400 gallons annually.

As an added bonus, any university faculty or staff member who registers a carpool receives a reserved parking space near an academic or administrative building of their choice.

Already have a carpool? To receive your free, reserved space, register your carpool by filling out the carpool application form. Be sure to review the carpool program guidelines.

Worried you’ll need a car while you’re at work? Sign-up for a Zipcar membership and you’ll always have wheels when you want them for off-campus lunch meetings, doctors appointments or anything else that comes up. Family or personal emergency? According to the carpool program guidelines, the university will pay for a cab for you to get where you need to be.

Is your commute less than sustainable? Make it your New Year’s resolution to take alternative transportation like walking, biking, or carpooling.

Looking for more ways to make 2012 your greenest year yet? Consider one (or more) of these sustainable resolutions.

Your favorite alternative transportation options just got better. Read on for updates on the university shuttle lines and Zipcar.

Ride the Wake

Did you know that you can track the location of the Downtown, Grey, Black and Gold line shuttles in real time? The Department of Computer Science developed real-time viewing for the shuttles’ positions using GPS technology. Track the location of your ride and stay warm and productive in your office or apartment until your shuttle approaches your stop. Check it out at http://shuttle.cs.wfu.edu/ from your computer or download the free Ride the Wake app for your iPhone or iPad.

Also new to the Ride the Wake lines, a weekend shuttle loop was added to the university’s alternative transportation options. University community members can now travel to Hanes Mall and the River Birch Lodge shopping center on Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and on Sundays from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Shuttles depart from the Benson Center and run on a continuous loop.

Zipcar – Wheels when you want them!

Based on continuously climbing demand, Zipcar has added a third car to the WFU campus fleet.  The new silver Mazda lives in Lot N – between Kitchin and Poteat.  We hope that this will be convenient for faculty and staff working on the north side of campus as well as for students living on the Quad and north campus residence halls.

Remember, you can have an account with Zipcar for your personal use and you can join a departmental account for all WFU-related travel. With a departmental account, travel is charged directly to your department – no need for travel reimbursements.

Additionally, thanks to a partnership with Ford Motor Company, the Ford Focus that is located in front of Johnson Residence Hall comes with a discount. As part of Ford’s sponsorship, the hourly rate for the Ford vehicle on campus is reduced by $1/hour. The program will cover two academic years, beginning September 1, 2011 and ending August 31, 2013.

To learn more and to sign-up for Zipcar, visit the WFU Zipcar web site: http://www.zipcar.com/wfu

By Caitlin Brooks-Edwards, Wake Forest Fellow

Photo by De'Noia Woods, Photography Intern

The transition between the spring and fall semesters of 2010 brought huge changes for the university’s department of transportation. Most notable of these is the two-fold increase in ridership on the Gold and Black shuttle lines. Ridership on those two lines topped 6,000 students last month.  These lines provide convenient rides to and from WFU campus and local apartment complexes. Students have enthusiastically jumped on board as they realized the financial savings on both gas and parking passes, as well as the extended hours offered by the shuttles.  This last factor had a huge impact on the increased ridership on the line.

Increased service to more apartment complexes also met the needs and wants expressed by students. GPS technology which allows riders to view the real-time locations of the shuttles has also been introduced this semester to add further convenience to the shuttle system.

The improved shuttle system is not the only successful transportation program that has been launched in the past year. Use of the Zipcar vehicles has increased steadily since its arrival on campus last spring. Since July, membership has tripled and continued growth at this rate will merit the addition of another vehicle to the fleet next spring. Other types of vehicles, such as a truck which could be utilized for moving purposes, are being considered for addition in the future.

An exciting transportation option that became available this semester is the on-campus solar shuttle.  The solar shuttle, which is a solar-electric hybrid vehicle, provides students a convenient means to travel to and from different locations on the Reynolda campus. The exact route has yet to be determined, and will be designed around input from a school-wide survey. If the existing shuttles’ popularity is any indication, the future is bright for the transportation department’s newest addition to the fleet of vehicles providing convenient, free transportation to university faculty, staff and students.

By Jackie Staiger, Marketing Intern

Beginning Wednesday, April 14th, the new 14-passenger solar shuttle will serve a new dedicated campus loop. The shuttle will run Monday through Friday, between 7:30 am and 4:00 pm on a continuous loop, with no service between 10:50 am and 11:20 am. The shuttle will loop around campus every 20 minutes (3x per hour).

The shuttle loop will extend out to Martin and Polo Residence Halls, Student Apartments at Lot R1; Lots W1 and W2, Main Bus stop; Gymnasium, Gulley Drive, Winston/Salem Halls, Scales Fine Arts Center, and Wait Chapel.

Wake Forest offers a very walkable campus core. For those students, faculty, and staff needing a lift from the outer edges of campus into the campus core, the shuttle offers an alternative to driving and parking. Our ultimate goal is to decrease the amount of vehicular traffic in and around the campus core, and to support a safe landscape for walking and bicycling.

Zipcars came to Wake Forest on January 20^th and are already getting a lot of use. Many college programs get a slow start, but at Wake Forest we’re half way to the usage rate that would allow us to add another vehicle to the fleet. As demand grows, so will the number of vehicles on campus.

According to a program overview, “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. Zipcar, which has been offering campus car sharing since 2002, now has programs at more than 120 colleges and universities across the country.” To join on campus, you must only be 18 years of age. If you are 21 years or older, you will have access to Zipcar’s 6,500 vehicles in cities and campuses around the US and the UK.

As Thomas Friedman points out in his new book, the world is indeed becoming hot, flat, and crowded. Zipcar provides a practical solution to this problem by reducing congestion and carbon emissions, as members have reported driving “40% less than they did before using car sharing.” Without a doubt, this program is both cost-efficient and environmentally effective.

Car sharing comes to Winston-Salem on January 20, 2010 when Wake Forest University launches the Zipcar program. The Zipcar car sharing program offers 24-hour access to vehicles when students, faculty, and staff need them. Membership in the university program is open to licensed drivers 18 years or older. The low hourly rate includes gas and insurance.

Volunteers will be available to talk with potential members about the program on January 20th in front of the Fresh Food Co. (aka The Pit) from 11:00 am until 2:00 pm.

Faculty, staff, and students of the Wake Forest campus community can apply for membership at any time on the Zipcar website. The two shared vehicles will be available for reservation on the evening of January 20th.

11/19, 2-5 p.m.: Ken’s Bike Shop will be performing free bike assessments and minor tune-ups underneath the Campus Recreation tent. A biking survey has also been made available through SEAC on their blog: http://sustainwfu.blogspot.com. Anyone who fills out the survey is eligible to win one of two $25 gift cards to Wake Forest University Stores.

Poteat Field

Contact Cassie Freund ( ) for more information.