Last January, I wrote a post about a family that had given up their car and stumbled upon the concept of “car sharing†– that is eschewing car ownership in favor of renting one when needed. This has a number of green advantages. Not owning a car reduces the urge to make 10 trips a day to various retail outlets, encourages walking and bike riding and there fore reduces carbon emissions.
Like many young urban dwellers, I had practiced a form of car sharing i.e. “car renting†while living in Chicago in the 80s. Able to afford a car but unable to afford to park it, I chose to take public transportation most of the time and rent a car for longer trips. This of course involved reserving a car, taking a bus/train/etc. to the rental car office, standing in line and filling out paperwork and then rushing to return the car within the 1 hour grace time allowed on the contract.
Car sharing is a bit different these days.
The new car sharing concept, offered by several companies, including Flexcar and Zip Car among others is simple. Join one of these services and have access to a variety of cars sprinkled around your area. These companies leave a variety of cars around town in specific locations (public parking garages, train stations generally), when you want to borrow one you simply reserve it online, pick it up at the designated location drive it around and return it to the same spot. You are charged by the hour, generally less than you’d pay for a rental car and a lot less if you only need the car for a few hours, since rental companies usually offer only a daily rate.
This is a great program for those who have a regular daily commute, especially a reverse commute. If you can take public transportation the, say, 15 miles to a spot near work, but then face a 2 mile trudge, in heels, to your office, this would be a great program for you. For suburbanites like me, trip to the city for a museum, the zoo, or a night out can be done by train with a car pick up at the station. If you live in the city, this is of course an awesome alternative to owning, or even renting, a car, as a car is more or less always at your disposal.
Right now this is limited to urban centers, but as these companies grow, more opportunities will arise for suburbanites to completely eschew cars too, or at least increase our use of public transportation.
[tags]a little greener, ecology, environmental, caring, society, car sharing, commute, ride sharing[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by ieatstars, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved
1 response so far ↓
TW // Sep 18, 2007 at 6:35 am
I love Flexcar. I work at a University where a parking permit is extremely expensive and more of a hunting permit, and we share a car in our family. Therefore, I don’t have a car during the day. Flexcar came to campus last winter. Now, I can run pick up a kid at school once a week, never pay for gas, insurance or parking. I can run to an appointment.
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