November 12-It’s no mystery that many people are trying to be more ‘green’ or environmental friendly. Fine. Go buy a hybrid vehicle. Use renewable energy. But rent a car? Today marked the coming-out, so to speak, of the CuseCar, a Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicle that will be available for the public to use starting next week.
One of the three cars that were put out today will be kept at SUNY ESF. CuseCar is a non-profit organization trying to create a more sustainable community, which Michael, Kelleher, Director of Renewable Energy at ESF says fits into what the university is trying to do. “We’re doing things to conserve energy in our buildings. Use renewable resources for generation.” He adds, “This is one of the transportation things we want to do to reduce emissions and costs.”
Whether students will want to pay a membership fee and hourly charge is a different story. Julie Greenfield, a junior at SUNY ESF says, “If you stop, like, if you’re going shopping downtown and still paying twelve dollars an hour for a car, it just seems kind of ridiculous.”
But CuseCar is an initiative that is meant to benefit the entire city, not just the university. “CuseCar offers a sustainable transportation system for students or members of the community that don’t want to have a car, or don’t want to have two cars. Or just need to have a car occasionally,” says Vita DiMacchi, co-founder of CuseCar.
This system is similar to the Zip Car, which was brought to Syracuse recently. The main difference between the two companies is that Zip Car is a for-profit organization. But that’s not the only difference. Michael Kelleher says, “The other major difference is that we use a more sustainable vehicle. Hybrids or other types of vehicles that have a little better features for the environment.
The public can start applying for memberships Monday, and DiMacchi is expecting a good number because she says their website, CuseCar.com has had over fourteen-thousand page views in just a few weeks.
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