Austin Car Share (and more)
(in case you haven't received 10 emails on this)
"Austin CarShare Founding Member Pre-Enrollment Launch
Monday, July 24
11 am
Plaza at Austin City Hall
Austin CarShare Begins Enrollment for Hourly Car Service
Service Offers Cars by the Hour without paying extra for gas and insurance
Austin CarShare is launching its membership pre-enrollment and founding member drive to bring carsharing services to Austin. Starting with a Monday, July 24 kickoff event, Austin CarShare will begin pre-enrolling members for its innovative carshare service scheduled to launch this fall.
Carsharing is a service that provides members with 24-hour access to a fleet of cars and trucks on a per hour and per mile basis. Gas, insurance, parking, maintenance, and roadside assistance are all included in the price of usage. "
and speaking of car shares...The Arlington Carshare Program 2006 Report provides a summary of the program and provides a second-year evaluation of the Carshare Program based on member surveys conducted by Arlington in March 2005 and 2006.
The report findings include the following:
* Carsharing membership has increased by over 37% in the past year for a total of nearly 3,500 individuals.
* Five percent (5%) of Arlington residents living in the Metrorail corridors are Flexcar or Zipcar members.
* Carsharing has allowed members to reduce their vehicle ownership rates and overall vehicle-miles traveled while increasing transit use and walking. Members also have generally been able to postpone buying a vehicle.
* The Report concludes that the Arlington Carshare Program complements the walk/bike/transit-friendly lifestyle available in Arlington’s urban villages.
(See Report Here)
Austin is no Arlington (Virgina. Austin of course is way better than the other Arlington. (are there more? probably)), but I think it has a fighting chance at success as it builds up its downtown. Hopefully it will be popular with the UT crowd, and less students will bring their cars to campus. I plan on using it once I sell my car! Now all Austin needs is
posted by Spakalina @ 8:02 PM
2 Comments:
There is a lot of controversy in the DC area (see DCWatch.com)about whether it is ethical to GIVE something as valuable as a parking spot next to the metro to a Profit-making enterprise such as flexcar/zipcar...is this an unfair subsidy?
Interesting.. Can Zipcar/Flexcar not afford to pay for the parking spaces? It's not unheard of for public $ to be used for private gain. Public $$ is often used to pay for toll roads, which, like Zipcar, anyone can use if they pay for it... However, if Zipcar is private and not a public/private partnership, the analogy doesn't exactly work.
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