After years of hinting that Wesleyan may follow in the tire tracks of its peer institutions, the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) Transportation Committee, along with Public Safety Chief Dave Meyer, announced that Zipcars would finally drive onto campus.

Zipcar is the world’s largest car-sharing service, renting cars to its members by the hour. Many colleges and universities across the country have been using the service to provide their students with better transportation options. Schools such as Williams College, Amherst College, Yale University, and Brown University have successfully implemented the Zipcar program.

The Transportation Committee – currently headed by Ben Firke ’12 — first proposed the idea for Zipcars two years ago under the leadership of Saul Carlin ’09. The following year, under Committee Head Jen Liebschutz ’11, the committee drafted the Zipcar proposal and submitted it to the administration.

The WSA hopes that the Zipcars will become available to students by the beginning of October; the final details of the program are still being hammered out. After paying an annual fee of $35 to become a member—which translates to free registration since students will get $35 worth of free driving the first month—renting a car will cost students eight dollars per hour or $66 per day on weekdays and slightly more on weekends.

Firke has been communicating with Zipcar since mid-summer and got the contract signed at the start of the school year. Since then, the administration has been in constant negotiation with Zipcar to determine the details of the contract.

Two cars will be brought to the University, a Honda Insight Hybrid and a Subaru Impreza. They will be located in the two parking spaces in front of the new Allbritton Center.

“We think these cars show a commitment to sustainability,” Firke said.

Meyer hopes that the Zipcars will alleviate the need for students to bring a car to campus. Currently, about one quarter of students bring a car to school.

“We anticipate around half of the student population using the Zipcars,” he said. “Hopefully this will help with parking problems and for students who may not be able to afford having a car on campus, this will be another option for transportation.”

One of the initial concerns with implementing the Zipcar program is that it usually does not pay for itself until the second or third year. The WSA will cover the cost of the program this year and the University and the WSA will share the cost for the second year. The program will be reevaluated by the administration and the WSA on a frequent basis.

Meyer noted that part of the process of improving transportation will be publicizing the transportation that is currently in place so that students can take better advantage of it.

“We want some new changes in the transportation system within the next year,” Meyer said. “We don’t know what they will be now, but we are coming up with new ideas and working with what we have, like publicizing the ride boards.”