Rental car system: good idea, bad planning

By Staff Editorial     8/21/08 7:00pm

Some may think that college students do not need cars and that living on campus enables them to have access to most necessities. But who's to say when the urge to go exploring off campus will strike? There will be times when the sterile, dead atmosphere of Fondren Library just doesn't cut it as a late-night study spot; only the 24-hour Starbucks will do. There will be times when students want to go to Katz's at 3 a.m. to indulge in a smorgasbord of artery-clogging delights. And there will be times when students may simply want to go for a drive to clear their thoughts. For many students without cars or parking spots, these off-campus options had not been available to them. That is, until this year.With rental car system ZipCar available to students (See story, page 6), students will be able to rent a car for $7 per hour - with a $35 annual fee - to drive to their heart's content. The models available to students include a Toyota Prius and a Volvo S40, and there is one of each. Unfortunately, two cars for about 50 percent of carless undergraduates seems to be low, which could lead to some problems, especially if a student walks to Baker Lot only to find that neither the Prius nor the Volvo were there.

The idea of a rental car system is certainly not a bad one: Unless you have no imagination or curiosity, discovering what lies beyond the hedges of the Rice campus can be a much-needed breath of fresh air after being cooped up for a week in the dorms with potentially annoying peers. But in order to have the option to go off-campus, the opportunity must be made available. And with only two cars in the program's first year for almost half of the student body, we feel the opportunity to venture beyond the campus walls seem restricted at best.

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