Archive: Around Town

The Tompkins County Rideshare Coalition announced they’ve partnered with Zimride to launch a customized social network for local and regional ridesharing.  The Zimride site, is a convenient way to find friends, coworkers or neighbors with whom to share commutes or one-time rides. Zimride, which can be used with Facebook, empowers people to join together and reduce traffic, parking difficulties and provide substantial cost-savings for our community. The Tompkins County Rideshare Coalition brings together Way2Go of Tompkins County Cooperative Extension, Ithaca-Tompkins County Transportation Council, TCAT and Tompkins County government with Cornell University, Ithaca College and Tompkins Cortland Community College.

”We are very pleased to offer a program that allows community members to easily find and share rides,” said Fernando de Aragón, Staff Director of the Ithaca-Tompkins County Transportation Council.  “This ridesharing program is available to anyone who lives, works or studies in Tompkins County. Residents from neighboring counties can use the system to find ridesharing opportunities to jobs and schools in Tompkins County.”

Chrisophia Somerfeldt, Program Manager of Way2Go, is equally excited. “With gas prices on the rise, sharing rides (and costs) is a great way to save money, get more people where they need to go, and have more fun getting there. Zimride is easy to use and leaves people in charge of their privacy level, preferences and when and with whom to share rides.” 

Through Zimride’s web-based interface, residents can find others with similar commuting patterns or one-time ride needs. As a social network with optional Facebook integration, Zimride is fun to use and helps establish trust among users. As with Facebook, Zimriders can view profiles for common networks, interests and friends before deciding to share a ride. Participants can create profiles that show their favorite in-car music, radio stations and even smoking preferences to ensure an enjoyable ride. This new transportation alternative is a convenient, affordable and sustainable way to collectively make a difference.

This ridesharing partnership marks a significant step in improving county sustainability practices. Furthermore, ridesharing on daily commutes or on longer, one-time trips will substantially reduce the costs of travel for our community.

Zimride is the largest online social rideshare community in North America with over 350,000 users. Zimride has implemented private rideshare communities for over 75 of the nation’s leading universities and companies. Zimride embraces ridesharing as a social activity and integrates with Facebook and Twitter to make it fun and easy for users to share the seats in their car or find a ride. Zimride empowers individuals to create social, sustainable and convenient transportation.

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