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Flexcar, a national car-sharing company, made its way to The Claremont Colleges in time for fall semeseter, offering Claremont McKenna students and staff a new way to get around town—shaving time, money, and abuses to the environment in the process.
While many students choose to forego bringing cars to residential colleges like CMC (with so many classes and social activities occurring on campus), every so often access to a car, whether for an afternoon at Disneyland or a quick run to Target, seems inevitable. Flexcar benefits now gives students and staff use of a car only as needed, without many of the extra expenses associated with owning a vehicle.
"This is a perfect solution for me," sophomore Darrell Hayes says. "I haven't needed a car very often, but it's really nice to have this service available to us."
Pomona College, along with the Claremont University Consortium (CUC), spearheaded the efforts to bring Flexcar to The Claremont Colleges. Through a subsidy, students, faculty, and staff at all of The Colleges may rent the cars for $7 an hour (or $48 a day). The flat hourly rate covers insurance, maintenance, and gas. Four vehicles (three Honda hybrids and a Honda van) will be available for reservation via department or personal membership and parked in the CUC parking lot.
A perk of the Flexcar program is that paperwork can be handled online. Also, unlike most car rental services requiring drivers to be a minimum 21 years of age, Flexcar is designed for drivers under 21.
Until Flexcar, transportation options for students at The Claremont Colleges have been limited to the obvious methods of getting around, including the public transit system and tagging along to off-campus events with friends with cars.
Students say they also appreciate the "green" aspects of the Flexcar program.
"I love that Flexcar has made it a priority to use low-emission, fuel-efficient vehicles," says sophomore Lucia Foulkes. "If I'm going to use a car, I feel like a better consumer for using Flexcar's services."
For more information, visit www.flexcar.com/oncampus.
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