It’s 2 a.m. on a Friday evening, and I stand outside Campus North Residential Commons with two friends. We need to get back to Woodlawn. It’s a 20-minute walk, it’s cold, it’s dark. It’s a trek none of us want to make.
As I pull up the RideSmart by Via app, UChicago’s new free rideshare system, I type in our destination and wait for a car, only to see that the closest Via is more than 15 minutes away. Refreshing the app only shows Vias with longer wait times, and tonight I’m not lucky enough to...