Wisconsin College Campuses Increasingly Turn To Car Sharing

More universities in Wisconsin are partnering up with car share companies to try to keep more cars off campus.

At University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, for example, some students recently proposed establishing a car share program on campus to address the lack of parking spaces. Starting this fall, students and employees will be able to buy a car share membership and pay for it when they need to drive somewhere.

UWL is working with Enterprise, which is also bringing the service to UW-Green Bay this fall.

Dan Sweetman, UWL’s environmental health, occupational safety, and sustainability program manager, said parking can be a continual challenge, especially as the campus grows.

“We’re hoping that this may provide some reasonable reduction in demand for parking on campus,” said Sweetman. “There may be some students or their parents that just don’t want to bring a vehicle to campus anymore.”

If demand for car share membership is there, Sweetman said more cars could be added to the fleet.

Enterprise said demand is growing at other partner schools, like St. Norbert College, Lawrence University, and Beloit College.

Cities like Milwaukee and Madison have community-wide car share companies, but universities there have partnerships with Zipcar.

Dar Ward is the commuter solutions manager at UW-Madison, which has had a car share program for almost 10 years. She said it continues to add cars to the fleet.

“We’re seeing it grow all the time,” said Ward. “Every month, we have more members and every month the cars are reserved for more hours.”

Each car share company does allow students who are under 21 to participate, but some companies require drivers that young to have a spotless record.