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>Jon Wiener
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>The Car-sharing Movement
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>Jon Wiener is the Peninsula Coordinator of City CarShare, a non-profit
>organization whose mission is to promote car-sharing as a means to
>reduce automobile dependence and to enhance the environmental and
>social integrity of our urban neighborhoods and planet. Visit
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>www.citycarshare.org for details.
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>Jon will describe the goals of the organization, the geographic areas
>where the program is in place (Mountain View is included), and how
>the driving public has responded.
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Jon began his talk by explaining that City Car Share is based on an idea that one of the founders got exposed to while traveling in Europe. In Zurich, Switzerland they have a car sharing organization that makes it possible for people to rent time on a car in small amounts, like an hour or two. Upon returning to California, he learned that the opportunity for such an organization exists here. Since founding the organization three years ago, it has grown to 3000 members and 85 cars.
For a member, membership costs $10 per month plus $2 to $4 an hour (depending on time of day) for car rentals. To sign up, somebody must have less than four points on their drivers license (no serious violations in the past two years). After signing up, they can reserve a car at any time from the citycarshare.org website. The longer in advance somebody tries, the better their chances of getting the slot they want to use a car in. Many car uses are scheduled at the last minute.
City Car Share tries to work with employers that are willing to commit to using a car at least four to six hours a day. Many of their members live in places like San Francisco, where the density is so high that needing a car on an ongoing basis is not necessary for many people. However, they are expanding into places like Emeryville and Mountain View when the local government facilitates it. For example, Emeryville is committing to renting cars a certain amount per month, taking most of the risk out of putting a pod of cars there.
A typical member has a $65 per month car use bill, much less than the usual cost of owning a recent model car. City Car Share did a study in which they found that members drive about a third less per year after joining, especially those who sell their cars. When the organization had 1500 members they estimated they were preventing 13,000 miles of driving every day, and saving more than 700 gallons of gas that way.
During Q&A the following points came up:
City Car Share is looking to expand in this Bay Area, but not outside it. However, they are working with similar organizations on a volunteer basis in places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania to develop such programs there.
They are a nonprofit organization because partly that makes expansion through grant programs possible. For example, Nancy Pelosi recently arranged for a $500,000 grant to help CCS expand in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. This is not possible in the for profit world.
City Car Share has a paid staff of about two dozen people, many of whom are part time. They invested in outside engineering expertise to make the key fob system and website work together seamlessly.
City Car Share leases its cars from Enterprise, so when people have mechanical difficulties that company handles it the same way they do for the other cars in their fleet.
Tian Harter