91 students at UMass Boston currently benefit from NuRide, a division of the MassRides program, which helps Massachusetts commuters find carpool partners. MassRides is funded by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). UMass Boston students using Nuride save approximately $9,828 and 14,284 gallons of gas per year.

Gary St-Fleur, Worksite Outreach Coordinator, encouraged students, faculty, and staff to take advantage of UMass Boston’s partnership with NuRide. “Students simply need to go to the website [commute.com/nuride] and create an account,” he explained. Students can start looking for ride partners as soon as their email gets approved.

Junior Pena, Chief Communication Officer of UMass Boston’s Student Events and Activities Council, recommends the program “simply because it is free.”

“With the closure of the North Lot parking, and the potential increase of parking fees, this should be the moment for [NuRide] to flourish,” Pena said.

Aditi Pain, Manager of the Recycling and Sustainability Program, told The Mass Media that each year on Earth Day, her office invites MassRides to campus, along with Zipcar, to help the campus staff, students and faculty learn about more environmentally friendly ways to get to campus.

UMass Boston students who join NuRide will always partner with another student. “Not everybody with account from Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail [etc..], can sign up,” explained St- Fleur. Instead, each person must be a student and must use a university email address, or in some cases an employer’s email address, to sign up. 

Umass Boston is the only public university in Massachusetts to sign the international Talloires Declaration committing to environmental sustainability in campus operations and academia. The university was on the Princeton Review’s List of Top Green Colleges in the United States in 2010, 2011 and 2012, and also received Leadership Awards from MassDOT for Excellence in Commuting Options in 2011 and 2012.