My ears are already ringing. Last year I remember clearly the disapproval by several local cyclists that BikePGH was seen tabling at last year at Zipcar’s Low-Car Diet event. One riled critic in particular expressed that BikePGH should stand on behalf of NO CARS not Low-Cars.
Déjà vu . . . one year later. BikePGH is at it again, and this time even more aggressive in our support of the annual event. One BikePGH staffer – me (Lou) is handing in the keys to my pick-up truck to take part in the Challenge and Scott Bricker will be a guest speaker at the kick off event this Friday in Market Square as part of Car Free Fridays.
Just for the record . . . advocating for NO CARS is pretty much the equivalent of advocating for NO BIKES. Is it really anyone’s business to demand what mode of transportation others use or don’t use? The U.S. was founded on the principle of freedom. Start taking away people’s freedom – their cars (thank you President Eisenhower and Jack Kerouac!), and people get all revolutionary n’ at. I can just imagine a NO CAR movement forming and the militias that would arise to protect motorist’s rights. . . this is one battle that can be easily avoided.
One excellent way to avoid a motorist uprising and slowly wean ourselves from oil and cars much larger and faster than we need for urban use is to employ and support Zipcar and other car-share/ride-share options. Zipcar and services like it make the economic impact of driving hit home more real because each time we choose to drive we’re charged for it, and it makes most of us think two or three times before we decide to use a car, which helps keep more cars PARKED.
The routine, intermittent, often exorbitant car expenses many of us have come to take for granted aren’t so much associated with driving as they are with the car itself; and here in lies an important distinction. Currently car owners pay to keep cars and stock up on gallons of gas. They do not pay to drive. It’s the rest of us that pay each time one of us chooses to drive in the form a poorer air quality and time lost associated with traffic congestion. Time and clean air are two of the most precious things people have on earth and the automobile has an interesting way of depleting us of both. We should be paying to drive instead of keeping cars because its the driving that’s costs society most.
The success of bicycle advocacy will be at best limited if we go at it alone, but when we develop strong partnerships with others that promote alternatives to single-passenger owner-occupied vehicles we dramatically increase support for mutual objectives – like clean air and safer less congested streets. This is no longer a fringe perspective. In fact thoughts like these echo similar ones being expressed by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. In a recent post on his blog LaHood makes clear “we must implement policies and programs that reduce vehicle miles driven.” As bicycle advocates this is an opportunity to squarely put our agenda in the main stream.
Car Free Fridays actually has more to do with being car free than it does with not driving. Car share enables us to take a bold step in our auto dependent world. Services like Zipcar and bicycle advocacy go hand in hand with transit and ride share. Together these alternative modes will help bring EQUITY to our streets and free us from an addiction to owning cars and driving everywhere.
Check out the Car Free Fridays page to learn about car share
Not a member of Bike Pittsburgh? Join today! We need you to add your voice! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership
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3 Comments
I’ve always liked the idea of car-share. I was a Flexcar member before they merged with Zipcar, but didn’t transfer my membership. I just couldn’t make it work.
I think the three critical changes that would need to be made for it to be viable for me are:
1. the per-hour rate is too high for a trip that involves leaving the car to sit for any length of time (eg, overnight). This could be offset by a higher per-mile charge, or a demand surcharge, so you only pay for idle time if there are actually other customers who might be able to use that car while you’re idling it.
2. All trips must be round trips from a fixed location. So I can’t book a car for a one-way trip to a restaurant and then for a one-way return two hours later, which would allow someone else to pick up that car and use it productively while I’m eating. For example.
3. The one thing that I needed a car for was to pick up and drop off two young kids from school. They were too big for the bike trailer, but too small to both ride their own bikes. But the fact that the car landing zone was so far from my house meant that I would have to (somehow) get to a landing zone, and then pick up the kids, and then go back to the landing zone, and then get myself and the kids back to my house. If I could pick up a car, and then leave it outside my house for someone else to swing by and pick up for their own trip, that would work for me. That obviously requires a larger-scale customer base, lots more cars, better logistics management software, some kind of mobile/cellphone UI, a very diffferent pricing model, and so on.
But yes, I completely agree with Bike Pgh’s philosophy here and not with the religious fanatics — If car use is bad, then less car use is less bad, ie, more better.
I wonder, do the car-share people have any statistics about the rate of single-occupancy use versus the rate of multiple-passenger use, and how that compares to the typical automobile use?
Great points Lyle. They really lend themselves to my biggest concern, which is a question of CONVENIENCE. Owning a car is INCREDIBLY convenient! I drive infrequently, but when I do I’m actually amazed of how convenient it is – of course until I’m stuck in traffic and/or desperately seeking parking.
The the thing I’m most sensitive to as I begin the challenge tomorrow is how inconvenient Zipcar might be. I’ll definitely be thinking about it and how it makes an excellent idea . . . basically undesirable. It won’t be a viable option for many people in PGH until they find a way to make it more convenient and cost effective.
Lou, thanks for writing this really well-reasoned bit. I’m going to say something about it on the T4 blog next week probably. Especially your point about advocating for no cars being just like car-heads saying “no bikes!” It’s about freedom and about choice, and cars are going to be with us for a long time to come. But let’s make all of the alternatives (walking, biking, transit, car-share) as attractive as possible to improve the quality of life in our urban (and suburban!) areas.
It’s unfortunate that you even have to defend such a smart bit of advocacy for zipcar. Every zipcar subscription means less cars on the road according to their numbers. For me here in DC, if we didn’t have Zipcar, we’d still have one car. It allowed us to go carless. Again, well done sir.