When Natasha Mikhail and her mother came from California last spring to visit the University of Colorado at Boulder campus, they didn’t rent a car.
With ease, they took an airport shuttle to Boulder and then buses around the college town. And they went without a car when they returned for freshman orientation over the summer.
So Mikhail left her car at home when she started school — an emerging trend that is delighting campus planners and environmental czars at CU.
Only 852 freshmen bought parking permits this school year, said Frank Bruno, vice chancellor for administration at CU. That’s more than a 20 percent drop since last school year — and a dramatic downshift since 2005, when more than 1,400 students bought parking permits, according to Bruno.
