Michael on Entrepreneurship

Car Sharing Companies in Major Metro Areas

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People in major cities with horrible parking situations and good public transportation can have a car available without owning or traditional rentals. The idea has been popular in European cities for some time, now it’s caught in on Washington DC and two other US cities.

From the Washington Post:

So he ditched the clunker and put his trust in Zipcar, one of two car-sharing companies in the Washington region that offer a range of vehicles for rent in increments as short as a half-hour.
Unlike traditional car rental outfits, car-sharing companies station small numbers of vehicles in neighborhoods across the region that users reserve online or by phone. They use electronic cards to get into cars and must return them to the reserved spots where they picked them up. Both companies in the Washington area, Zipcar and Flexcar, include gas, insurance and maintenance in their rates.

Read the rest of the article.

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  • Anonymous

    It’s about time!!  Public transportation is more expensive (in both time and cost per mile) for us here in Norfolk, VA than it is driving, and as a consequence, there are way too many cars on the road for this little burg’s highways to handle.  Transfer stations are few and far between, and it seems buses are always going in the wrong direction to be useful to most sailors around here.
    I used my husband for an example in researching this—to ride the bus from here to work, he’d have to be out on the stop at 5:30 a.m., ride 40 miles in the wrong direction to transfer to the correct bus, then ride 51 miles to the navy base, hopefully getting there by 7:00 a.m.  The 11-mile direct drive would take him 20-30 minutes depending on traffic.  Bus fare to and from work would be $2.50/day, while driving would cost him half that.
    Now, magnify this little tidbit times every major metro area in the country with a congested traffic problem…and you get a clue as to why Amtrak can’t pay for itself.
    Perhaps this car-sharing service is just the ticket for some of us here in this area (depending on cost per mile).

  • Anonymous

    It’s about time!!  Public transportation is more expensive (in both time and cost per mile) for us here in Norfolk, VA than it is driving, and as a consequence, there are way too many cars on the road for this little burg’s highways to handle.  Transfer stations are few and far between, and it seems buses are always going in the wrong direction to be useful to most sailors around here.

    I used my husband for an example in researching this—to ride the bus from here to work, he’d have to be out on the stop at 5:30 a.m., ride 40 miles in the wrong direction to transfer to the correct bus, then ride 51 miles to the navy base, hopefully getting there by 7:00 a.m.  The 11-mile direct drive would take him 20-30 minutes depending on traffic.  Bus fare to and from work would be $2.50/day, while driving would cost him half that.

    Now, magnify this little tidbit times every major metro area in the country with a congested traffic problem…and you get a clue as to why Amtrak can’t pay for itself.

    Perhaps this car-sharing service is just the ticket for some of us here in this area (depending on cost per mile).

  • Anonymous

    great site

  • Anonymous

    great site

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