Dial-a-Ride Is the Newest Way to Arrange That Trip
FOR Dartmouth students about to hit the road to a favorite woman's college, the big town, home, or back to campus, something new has been added under the ingenious title Dial-a-Ride.
Dial-a-Ride, a program organized by the Dartmouth Women's Club of Boston and supported by that group and the College, makes use of two telephone answering services, one in Hanover and the other in Boston. Both serve as matchmakers between Dartmouth students who need rides and students, parents, or alumni who would like riders.
The system is simple: a student seeking a ride to Northampton calls the Hanover number, 643-4166; the answering service tells him what possibilities, if any, are open for getting to Northampton on the date specified. As the student hangs up and prepares to call the list of car owners he has just received, the answering service puts his name and number on another list specially prepared for car owners who may call in seeking companionship (and someone to help pay for the gas) to that Smith College destination. The plan works the same in Boston except that the telephone number there is 482-4166 and the traffic may be expected to be mainly toward the northwest, rather than scattered to all points of the compass from out of Hanover.
Prime credit for this service, which began April 1 and is running on a trial basis (to prove the need for it) until June 7, must go to Mrs. Robyn Bell, wife of Daniel Jr. '3B and mother of Robert H. '67. For the past year and a half the Bells have had "a steady stream of students show up at our door (conveniently located near Harvard Square) half-frozen and half-drowned, always exhausted and hungry from as many as nine hours on the road" hitchhiking. Mrs. Bell decided this was both dangerous and foolish since it was "all due to passengers and drivers at Dartmouth being unable to get together." So she set out to bring them together, and since she was membership chairman and on the board of directors of the Dartmouth Women's Club of Boston, it was through that organization that she worked.
She did not lack for interest and support. In addition to her husband, alumni who advised and gave a helping hand to getting the project moving were Ned Richardson '29, a telephone company official; Esmond Crowley '41, President of the Alumni Association of Boston; and Francis Austin '24, another telephone company official. The program as worked out by Mrs. Bell, her alumni aides, and officials of the College who promised support on the Hanover end, received a unanimous vote of approval of the Dartmouth Women's Club to provide the support for the Boston end.
The program will be renewed in the fall if the need is proved this fall. The numbers, once again, are 643-4166 (Hanover) and 482-4166 (Boston); the name is Dial-a-Ride; the theme is communications improvement; and the word is go, go, go.
