Cloud Commuting, Redux
Via Ian Sacs, here’s a program that speaks to the heart of the networked, “cloud commuting” city I talked about earlier, vis a vis Adam Greenfield (and it turns out “cloud commuting” has already been theorized by frequent Traffic appearer David Levinson): Hoboken’s Corner Cars:
The program, called Hoboken Corner Cars, seeks to sprinkle car-sharing vehicles on-street throughout the entire city – complete with exclusive, reserved parking spaces - so that these vehicles are much more accessible and convenient than any personally owned car. Existing car-sharing statistics in Hoboken justify this special treatment; for every one of these vehicles placed in the community, over 17 households will choose to give up their cars, taking cars off the street and culling the glut of “recreational” ownership for residents who commute daily via transit. An additional 20 or more households say they postpone or stop considering buying a car because car-sharing vehicles are available. The cherry on the sundae is a potential savings per household of $3,000 to $5,000 over vehicle ownership.
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This entry was posted on Friday, June 18th, 2010 at 10:48 am and is filed under Cities, Commuting, Congestion, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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June 18th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
As someone who lives car-free in the suburbs of Portland, I find these car-sharing programs rather frustrating. If I need to spend the day out of town, it’s inevitably cheaper to rent a car for the entire weekend rather than use one of these car-haring programs. Then again, it’s a shorter walk to the car rental store, too….
June 18th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
I agree, the cost of car-sharing programs is still prohibitive. Now, cars are terribly expensive to OWN, for sure, but as rentals the price barrier feels much higher.
June 21st, 2010 at 3:58 am
I’ve looked at it too, and have trouble finding it cost effective for anyone doing a reasonable amount of driving. (So long as they choose to drive a bomb).
http://thomasthethinkengine.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/zipcar-a-review/
http://thomasthethinkengine.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/flexicar/
There’s something that I resist in their business model: the idea that I will need to make a trade-off for every trip about whether I can justify borrowing a car. My current system is a trade off between cycling, driving and PT which all have negligible marginal costs.
I feel like constantly facing a trade-off cost of about 20 bucks will see me staying at home a lot more where i previously would have driven. Do I trust my future self to not be too frugal to actually enjoy himself?
June 21st, 2010 at 9:36 am
There’s zero chance that this program will work out well for anybody other than machine politicians that will line their pockets as per SOP in Hoboken/Hudson county.
June 21st, 2010 at 11:56 am
I live in Hoboken and am curious why this program would be any different than the Zip car program. Is it a way for Hertz to expand its business? Zip car has been in Hoboken for 2 or 3 years.
I suppose the difference is the parking spaces. Zips were located in some odd spots, but it looks like the public/private partnership means that Hertz will get some prime location parking spaces. This means there will be spots that sit unused much of the time? 22 spots to be exact.
June 22nd, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Just saw 2 of these “connect” cars a block away from my place today. They have a Mini and a Yaris at a corner next to Maxwells.
They both have “Connect by Hertz” stickers on the side. Don’t know if it detracts… or if the stickers are a badge of honor for the car-less set.
June 25th, 2010 at 7:44 am
Just a technical point - if Hoboken streets are laid out on a grid, then the 5-minute walk zone around each car should be diamond-shaped rather than circular (the so-called “Manhattan metric”).