Students carpool to save carbon

Author: H.Kay Merriman

From the ability to attach "What's your stripper name?" to a Wall Post to the online casting of Harry Potter spells, the myriad of new Facebook applications are easy to glaze over when you are trying to stalk the "recently tagged photos" of the cute a cappella singer in your Psych class. James Tresner '09, though, is campaigning for everyone to add the new GoLoco application, and it certainly seems more worthwhile than "SuperPoke!"

GoLoco is an online rideboard program that helps students to arrange trips and share rides in order to reduce carbon emissions. "Transportation accounts for about 20% of our green house gas emissions. The greenest thing you can do is drive less and when you do drive fill up your existing car with friends," said Tresner, and GoLoco is helping people to do just that.

GoLoco is run completely through Facebook. People simply post rides that they would be willing to share and then others can search to find ride-shares to the places that they need to go. GoLoco then tracks the number of miles you travel with shared rides and calculates the pounds of CO2 that you save.

Tresner acknowledged the slight danger of finding rides online: "Obviously GoLoco can't guarantee the character of the person you ride with, but they do require a phone confirmation of membership, and running the program through Facebook means that you already have the built-in privacy settings," he said. "But there is never an obligation on the rider's part to accept a driver's offer of a ride."

Tresner became involved with GoLoco and decided to bring it to Middlebury because he thought that both the College and the environment could greatly benefit from the program.

"GoLoco is a win-win - drivers share the cost of maintaining a car, people without cars can go places, and CO2 emissions are lowered," he said.

In order for GoLoco to truly function at Middlebury, students must first post their rides. Tresner explained that there are three different kinds of trips that people post and each type is equally important. The first is "places you routinely go," like work and school. This posting gives the GoLoco user the potential to set up a routine carpool. GoLoco also allows users to post places they "would like to go," like concerts or sporting events, allowing them to find people who are already planning to drive there. The final and probably most important category to Midd-kids is "places you are going once," such as home for the weekend. This category gives carless students a way to find a ride home over breaks and drivers passengers with whom to split the gas money.

Tresner emphasized the value of posting every trip you plan on taking. "Even posting a trip to the grocery store or movies is worth it because you never know which of your friends might want to join you," he said.

With Fall Break this weekend, GoLoco might be able to provide you with the earth-friendly travel alternative you were looking for because if you can't find a ride off campus, you might be stuck in your dorm room writing comments in people's supposedly anonymous "Honesty Box," and we all know that that is never a good idea.