The national car-sharing service Zipcar will likely expand into Northwestern’s Evanston campus in early 2014, a University official said.
The University agreed to allow the car-sharing service on campus in November and is now waiting until garages on North and South campus are completed to seal the deal, said Brian Peters, assistant vice president for University Services. Zipcar and the University began negotiating in the summer, he said.
Zipcar will join Enterprise CarShare, which recently purchased I-Go, as an additional car-sharing service option for students. Zipcar plans to bring in three more cars — possibly economy sedans and a compact SUV — in addition to Enterprise’s two cars on the Evanston campus.
One car each will be parked at North, South and central campus locations but the specific spaces have yet to be determined, wrote Charles Stephens (Weinberg ’95, Kellogg ’01), general manager of Zipcar in Chicago, in an email. Stephens declined to discuss whether the company will pay to use University parking.
“So far (car-sharing has) been low maintenance for the University,” Peters said.
Zipcar charges a $15 application fee and $25 annual fee starting the second year a college student uses the car sharing service. Hourly rates for yearly plans start at $7.25. Although the service is limited to those 21 and over, the company would drop the minimum age to 18 for use of cars through NU’s partnership, a Zipcar spokeswoman told The Daily in March.
“We have a long-standing relationship with the University and are confident in the services we provide there,” Enterprise CarShare spokesman Greg Phillips said. “We offer superior customer service. … We offer new cars and clean cars.”
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