First years who drive to campus next fall will have to send their cars back home.
In a continued to effort to promote sustainability and environmental responsibility, first-year students beginning with the class of 2013 will no longer be allowed to bring cars to campus. The decision will help to eliminate approximately 100 cars from campus.
In a statement made in early August, President Mills said, "Having a car at Bowdoin is mostly a luxury, and hardly ever a necessity. As we investigate steps the College can take to move responsibly and effectively to improve the environment and to serve as a role model for sustainability practices, the elimination of first-year cars just makes a whole lot of sense."
Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster has received largely positive feedback from the announcement, noting that current students have not reacted negatively as the policy doesn't affect them, a decision by the College that was "very intentional."
"The real driver for this is the environmental push, and I think it's the right thing and the right time to do this," said Foster in an interview with the Orient.
In order to accommodate an increased need for shared modes of transportation, the College has introduced two new programs: Zipcars and the Bowdoin Shuttle, which replaces the Safe Ride program.
Zipcar is a nationwide car-sharing service that allows members to rent cars for an hourly or daily fee. Membership requires an annual fee of $25, and the hourly rate is $7. Bowdoin has made two Zipcars available to students and employees. The cars, a Honda Civic Hybrid and a Honda CRV, are located in the Russwurm House parking lot on College Street.
In a letter to first-year students, Special Assistant to the Dean of Student Affairs Meadow Davis noted that many students at Bowdoin say their cars mostly sit in parking lots, and many others do not have cars on campus.
"Zipcar provides the freedom to travel away from campus to attend interviews, volunteer in the community, run errands, or take a weekend trip," the letter read.
Davis also cited Zipcar's environmental impact. "[It] proves many environmental benefits such as preserving green space by using fewer parking spaces, lower fuel consumption," she wrote. "Each Zipcar eliminates the need for more than 15 privately owned vehicles. That could mean 30 fewer cars at Bowdoin."
According to Davis, Zipcar has processed 104 applications from Bowdoin students, faculty, and staff. Though usage was slow in August, when students had not arrived on campus, they now make up the majority of the applications.
"We hope that usage will continue to increase as students, faculty, and staff use the cars and experience the convenience of Zipcars for themselves," said Davis.
"Community members can use the cars as well," Davis added. "While we do not track the number of members from the Brunswick community we see they are using the cars. It is really excellent to have a car sharing program that literally brings sharing to both the campus and the town."
Students without individual means of transportation will also be able to utilize the College's new Bowdoin Shuttle, a hybrid that adopted the efficiency of a typical shuttle system with the flexibility of the former Safe Ride program.
The new system incorporates 10 fixed stops, including various campus apartments along with stops downtown such as Hannaford or Joshua's Tavern. In addition, the Shuttle will pick up students at their individual locations and take them anywhere within a one-mile radius.
The new program, said Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols, "gave us the flexibility of serving the more outlying places," such as off-campus housing on School Street or popular weekend destinations like Sea Dog Brewery in Topsham.
However, the Shuttle will not provide rides outside of the hours of 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. (3 a.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday). Nichols noted that Security has been "liberal" in the past about providing rides to students, which were particularly popular on days with inclement weather.
"It became more than we bargained for," he said, adding that there were many days when officers were spending more than half of their shifts giving students rides, which prevented them from attending to their regular campus patrols.
Rides are available, however, at any hour to students who feel unsafe or have a health issue. Said Nichols, "Anything that affects safety, we're all over that."