Need a ride? Check the Ride Board at the Commons Underground in the University Student Commons.
The board – a series of maps including Richmond, Virginia and the United States, offers nearby hooks for hanging the contact information. In short, a board that connects students needing rides to students willing to provide them.
Tim Reed, director of Student Commons and Activities, said the Ride Board has served Virginia Commonwealth University students for 10 to 15 years.
“It rose out of the need for cheap travel, and the need for help paying for gas,” he said.
During Phase 3 construction, “by default” its current home became a wall in the Student Commons near Break Point games room.
Initially, students could find the Ride Board in a back hallway where those who knew it existed went directly to it, Reed said.
Erin Gray, information services manager for Off-Campus Student Services, which is located in the Information Center on the first floor of the Student Commons, said she doesn’t receive much feedback about the board from students.
“Most feedback comes when they hear about it for the first time,” she said, adding that she hasn’t heard any negative feedback – so she thinks the system must be effective.
Even students who don’t need rides like the Ride Board.
“People stand there just looking to see who’s going where,” Reed said. “It’s a bizarre kind of entertainment.”
In an e-mail, Tom Tourje, a junior environmental science major, said he thinks the Ride Board is a great idea, but not a reliable way to find a ride.
“I’ve had my name up almost an entire year but only received one offer for a lift…it’s good when it works though,” he said. “I didn’t know the person I rode with, but I think that makes things more interesting.”
Though some students might wonder about the safety of using the Ride Board to find travel companions, Tourje said safety for both the rider and driver is certainly an issue.
“It sorta runs along the lines of hitch-hiking…if you’re willing to ride with a stranger you have to be willing to take some risks,” he said, “but for the most part I think that with good judgment it’s fairly safe.”
Gray said that finding travel companions is “really up to the students,” as no screening process is used to advertise on it.
“We’ve never had a problem,” she said, pointing out that the board seems to work pretty well for long-distance travel, but locally, students “push the bus system.”
Will the university ever switch to an electronic version of the Ride Board?
Maybe. But Reed said a computerized database would require maintenance, and he doesn’t receive complaints about the way it operates now.
“Students who use it really like it, and it doesn’t cost a thing,” he said.
Gray, whose Off-Campus Student Services maintains the Ride Board, agreed.
“Except for taking down old cards, it’s pretty self-sustaining. And usually people take down the cards themselves,” she said. “I wish everything were like the Ride Board!”
Since it’s convenient, it’s cheap, and it requires little to no maintenance – Reed called it “the most cost-efficient service we offer.”