Relief for campus parking woes

After months of anticipation, UCT's Ridelink scheme will go live on 20 September, the first day of the campus-wide Green Week, which runs until 24 September. (Watch the UCT website for more information on Green Week.)

Ridelink is described as the first university carpooling system in the country. It's a free carpooling service for the UCT community that works by matching users, based on their travel schedules and routes. Hosted on Vula, Ridelink can be accessed by anyone with a UCT student or staff number.

An informal survey of 200 cars entering UCT's Sports Centre parking area one morning last term revealed that almost 90% had only one occupant.

"If just half of those people began sharing lifts to campus, 90 more parking places would become available overnight," said the GCI's Kimon de Greef, "never mind that the new carpoolers would halve their morning petrol bills. Besides its practical and environmental benefits, carpooling also makes perfect economic sense."

As an incentive, UCT carpoolers can look forward to reserved parking on campus. From 20 September, parking lot P4 (next to the rugby fields) will be reserved for multiple-passenger vehicles only. Access will be controlled by a boom gate operated by a UCT traffic official.

(Ridelink is part of the Green Campus Initiative, supported by the Properties and Services Department. To find out more please visit here)