Credit: Buffalo Rising
The Transport Politic offers food for thought:
Is car sharing necessary or even a good idea for dense cities where public transit is ubiquitous and where most goods can be bought within walking distance? What are the best modes for service implementation?
According to Zipcar, each shared vehicle takes fifteen to twenty personal vehicles off the road. This is made possible because of Zipcar’s low rates, starting at $8 hourly and $77 daily, along with a $50 annual subscription charge, collectively small enough to convince people to abandon their cars or to avoid buying them at all. The end result, at least theoretically: fewer cars on the road, more efficient use of each automobile, and fewer parking spaces needed. It has proven a cheaper alternative to taxis and car rentals and has been quickly adopted.
The problem, of course, is that many of the people using car sharing programs once weren’t using any cars at all, meaning that the easy access to vehicle actually means an increase in overall car use. Zipcar’s campaign earlier this year to convince New York City pedestrians that they could be getting around more quickly in an automobile suggests that the service’s best market is among people who are currently walking, biking, or taking transit to get to work. Should cities be encouraging car-share programs if the end result is to convince people who don’t use automobiles today to use them in the future?
On the other hand, it is true that car sharing vastly expands the mobility of people without cars, especially at nighttime, when congestion is less of a problem and when transit is less reliable. It allows carless urbanites to buy products at places like Ikea, often situated in places difficult to reach by transit. It opens up the idea of being car-free to college students and residents of small towns.
Just as Paris took bike sharing to the extreme with Velib’, it wants to take car sharing to the next level with Autolib’. With 1,000 stations located on the street or in underground parking garages in the city and in 30 surrounding communes, the service would offer 3,000 cars available throughout the day by 2011. Every vehicle would be electric so as to reduce pollution levels. At the cost of four to five euros each half hour, with a 15-20 euro subscription fee, the service would be more expensive than its North American cousin. The goal? Liberating 20,000 parking spaces in the city and dramatically reducing the number of inhabitants who own private vehicles.
Unlike most existing programs like Zipcar, Autolib’ would let customers pick up cars and return them in different locations, just as Velib’ allows with bikes. This difference spins the concept of car sharing, making it imaginable for people to drive to work on a daily basis using the vehicles — not true with Zipcar, which forces you to return the car to where you picked it up, and within a short period of time, unless you want to pay a large fee.
Principally because of this difference, the French Green Party has come out strongly against what is a project of the Socialist Party, despite the fact that the two are politically in control of both the region and city in a coalition. According to the Greens, the 4 million euros it would cost to get the system up an running could be better used — especially since the environmental benefits of the project are questionable. They claim that while they are in favor of more traditional forms of car sharing, Autolib’ wouldn’t work efficiently because it would encourage more frequent use of motorized vehicles by people who currently take the subway or ride bikes. Instead of encouraging longer-distance trips, as does Zipcar, Autolib’ would provide inhabitants the ease of making short hops just about anywhere, minimizing the benefits of bike or train travel.
The fact that, according to a study supporting the project, more than 50% of the people interested in subscribing to Autolib’ currently don’t have a car suggests both that public transit has failed to fulfill every transit market and that car use may actually increase as a result of the system’s implementation. Autolib’ might be one solution — but further expanding transit offerings is also a possibility.
This argument rings true for Paris, where literally everyone in the city is within 500 meters of a Metro station and where 20,000 bikes are offered at the measly price of a 29-euro annual subscription. If you want to implement car sharing without stimulating more driving, it should prioritize longer-distance travel and infrequent trips; frequent trips should be covered by public transport and short hauls in the car should be taken in taxis.
In the U.S., car sharing might also have the negative effect of increasing car use in cities like New York and San Francisco, each of which have heavily transit-dependent populations that would likely be switching into automobiles, not out of them. It might make more sense to focus car sharing efforts in places that lack reinforced public transportation provisions — ideal if the goal of car sharing is to cut down on the number of people who own cars, rather than put people who currently don’t use them into them.
That's most of the original piece, but I recommend reading the very substantial comments that follow.
Comments
aaron freed wrote on 12.17.09, 6:45pm:
i subscribe to the zero-sum notion: that you can't get something for nothing. car sharing may result in fewer cars on the road, but those cars that are used get used more often, and then require more frequent maintenance or replacement.
similarly, people who use car shares typically reduce their annual mileage by 25%. so there is a change in behavior induced by car sharing for existing car owners. unfortunately, as this post suggests, it is probably offset by induced demand for non-car owners.
so how do we get ahead? we're left with the legacy of a automotive cabal that made this country dependent on the automobile. our infrastructure is stymying our efforts. it's time to turn to our politicians and, in turn, our developers and architects and city planners to change the structure of our communities.
S E Garrett wrote on 01.04.10, 5:42am:
I think the concerns are probably overstated. There are some places like the City of London where there will never be many cars, shared or otherwise, there simply aren't any parking places and the public transport is used by all.
Otherwise, most car sharers are people who would otherwise own their own cars. Yes there are some that are now enabled to have access to a car, who wouldn't otherwise, but they are still likely to use the car relatively little.
Most people who have owned a car and move to a car sharing scheme, start off using the car quite often and as they get used to the alternatives, reduce their use. As is so often pointed out they can see the real cost of using the car against the journery, rather than having it hidden. Most car owners have little idea of the true cost of their journeys.
However the biggest reason for supporting car sharing is that once people have shared one thing, and found it worked, they are more likely to go on and share something else. They find that there are some big unexpected community benefits too. Often they find that these benefits are more important to them than the economic and environmental benefits. Nearly everyone I speak to who has shared something for some time, tells me that they are "so lucky to have found such a perfect scheme with great people". After years of this, I realise it isn't luck, it's sharing.
This is an interesting piece and the comments were even more interesting! Lots of folks finding car sharing reducing cars, but others finding that a carshare still represents dependence on a car. For myself, I found carsharing to be a lovely bridge to a carfree lifestyle. Without the ability to occasionally use a car, I would have felt very frustrated when I first stopped being a car owner. Now that I've been car free for a number of years, I use a carsharing service only very rarely. Somewhat more frequent for me is borrowing a car from a friend for winter shopping trips.
I think that one of the ways carsharing services can reduce total vehicle miles is by putting the cost of driving the car at the time you take the trip. When you own your own car, it's in your interest to drive it somewhat frequently in order to recover your investment in the car. This is especially true of using your car for small trips in which the gas price would be negligible. When you use a carsharing service, each trip costs you enough money that you think twice before reserving the car. Or at least I do. (But then I'm kind of a penny-pincher).