Drivers can pool rides, resources
By Dave Morantz Special to the Kansan
JoAnna Faoro, New Haven, Conn., freshman, needs a ride home for Thanksgiving. But without a car or a plane ticket, Faoro must find an innovative way to get back home to see her family.
Faoro took advantage of the KU travel board, located on the main floor of the Kansas Union.
"I just walked by it one day in the Union and I was like,'Wow, maybe I can get a ride home," Faoro said.
Neither the University of Kansas nor the Union is responsible for matching riders with drivers. It is the responsibility of potential riders and drivers to check the cards at the travel board and call people to arrange rides, said Susan Cary, box office supervisor at the Union.
The travel board consists of a map of the United States divided into geographic regions. People looking for rides can write their names, phone numbers, addresses, dates when they want to travel and whether they are willing to share expenses on a blue rider card. The card is placed in the slot of the region to which they want to travel.
Drivers looking for riders to share expenses or just wanting company on a long trip fill out the same information on a white card and place it in the appropriate slot.
There also is a commuter board for people who need rides to and from Topeka, and Kansas City and around Lawrence.
Sally Hayden, an employee at the Spencer Museum of Art, said that she used the board often a few years ago to ride to Hays. She
traveled there about three of four times with the same man on his way to Colorado.
"We didn't become fast friends," she said.
"But it was a good way to get out there."
Hayden now is trying to find a ride to Marysville.
"I like the idea of car pooling and saving energy," she said. "But it seems that more people want rides than will drive."
There are about 70 cards at the travel board, but Gene Wee, reservations coordinator at the Union, said that number increased around the holidays. About 15 of the cards are from drivers looking for traveling companions and riders to share expenses.
Despite the success of people like Hayden, some people are apprehensive at the thought of taking a road trip with a stranger.
Natalie Honig, a sophomore trying to find a ride home to Boulder, Colo., said she has received a few calls about rides home but that she would prefer to ride with a female.
"If a girl calls, I'm like, 'All right,'" she said. But if a guy calls, I kind of sketch out."
Liz Allen, a sophomore from Omaha, Neb., will drive home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Like Gelman, she said she was looking for company on the ride but that it really didn't matter whether the rider helped pay for gas.
Despite the worries of people like Honig, Sgt. Chris Keary of the KU police said that no problems had ever been reported from people using the travel board in the Union.
"I just saw the travel board and thought it would be nice to have someone to make the drive with," she said.
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