With Car Sharing!
I'm sure many of you have heard about companies that offer car sharing to urban dwellers who only need a car a few times a week or even a month. I had examined this business last year and was intrigued. Today I've been reading more about it after hearing that the nation's largest car sharing competitors Flexcar and Zipcar agreed on a merger last year.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about what I want my standard of living to be after I graduate from the University of Arizona this spring. I will be married, living somewhere in the southwest, hopefully in an urban setting in which I can choose to live a short distance from work so that I can walk, ride a bike, or hop on mass transit to get to work each day.
As a married couple, I would love to own just one car and join a car sharing service in order to provide the flexibility provided with owning a second car. Flexibility is maximized by the fact that we can reserve a sedan, wagon, truck, hybrid, or sports car to do whatever we need. Plus we will be saving substantial amounts of moolah while we do it.
Plus check out the green car sharing benefits validated in a recent study:
- Each shared car replaces up to 20 privately-owned vehicles
- Over 40% of car sharing members decide not to purchase a car or sell a car they currently own
- Car sharing members save more than $400 per month over owning, insuring, and maintaining their own car, that money can be spent locally
- Government agencies, University officials and real estate developers have told Zipcar that each
new parking spot can cost from $35,000-$50,000 to develop. M.I.T. provides students and faculty
access to more than 20 Zipcar vehicles; because of Zipcar and other transportation demand
management initiatives the school reports savings of more than $9 million, adding over one million
square feet of new office space without a single new parking space.
Car sharing works great on University campuses where students rarely need to travel much past walking distance around the campus, plus all of their classmates have cars to share anyways. I know here at the U of Arizona, parking is a major issue. A garage pass costs upwards of $500 a year. Each year the university acquires more land in order to develop four story parking garages to meet the high-demand for parking passes which often sell out before the school year begins.
My hope is that America will become increasingly urban in order to realize the advantages of shared spaces and possessions. As car sharing firms focus their growth on college campuses, a entire generation will enter the marketplace familiar with car sharing.
For more info visit:
Zipcar
Flexcar
This article from Eco-Worldy: Are you willing to car share?
Recent Comments