by Bryce Reedy
One of the pressing questions students always find themselves asking when they are moving to a college campus is whether or not they should bring their own car.
The question itself brings several different scenarios along with it. If one brings a car, then they will have to drop more money on a parking pass while stressing over if they are in the correct parking area and making sure that no one decides to take their car for a joy ride.
But if one does not bring a car then they do not get to go on their late night adventures to Del Taco or go to the movies on a Friday night.
However, Colorado Mesa University and Enterprise have
teamed up to try and combat this issue by implementing the Enterprise CarShare program onto campus for this school year. For$5 an hour,students can rent one of two cars that Enterprise has given the school to explore the town, go to the movies, get in their weekly Walmart shopping spree and experience a variety of other activities off campus.
“This is a program that is a pilot program for our campus,” Director of the University Center Bree Meier said. “We have never done one of these before, though other institutions and other agencies have these on their lots.”
In order to put in a reservation for one of the vehicles, students must be members of the Enterprise CarShare program.
Students can become a member by going to EnterpriseCarShare.com/coloradomesa and from there they can register into the program. It currently costs $1 to register and once they are in the system they are able to reserve the cars for any specific block of time that they need.
Once the students have completed registering they will be sent a card that will allow them access to the cars when their reserved block of time has come. Currently both cars are located in the far corner of the Bunting parking lot.
Once students have reached the cars, they tap the scanner with the card provided in order to unlock the doors. From there they can take the car anywhere
throughout Grand Junction for the block of time that they have signed up for.
Students will be fined extra for any time beyond their reservation that they have the car checked out. Along with that, Enterprise does have ways to stop the car, or find the car, if it is used improperly.
“If at any point somebody goes awry with the car, it does have GPS in the car. So at any point [Enterprise] can shut it down from their site,” Meier said.
Colorado Mesa University will be monitoring how often this service is being used and that will later determine if the campus will get more than the two vehicles that it currently owns.
