Congrats to New Jersey for leading the nation in transportation innovation! Well, when it comes to car sharing, anyway. As the City of Hoboken Web site (via StreetsBlog) reports, today was the launch of the country’s first large-scale (well, 42 automobiles in 21 pickup locations) car sharing program, known as “Corner Cars.”
Launched by the Hoboken government, the state of New Jersey, and Connect by Hertz (the ripoff of ZipCar, which also had its initial launch in New Jersey), the program is going to be rolled out in stages, with the first stage expected to remove up to 750 vehicles from the city’s already-packed roads. Hoboken is actually uniquely suited to be a good testing site for a program like this — it is so tightly populated that, even with only 21 drop-off points, 90% of the population will be able to walk 5 minutes or less to get a “Corner Car.” [SButtonZ button="digg"]
Here’s a breakdown of the benefits to multiple demographics, from the Hoboken Web site:
Many Hoboken residents own a car but commute daily by transit, bus, bike or walking. They move their car for street cleaning or pay high rates to park in a garage. They use their car for groceries, to visit family, or to go to the beach. Other than that, their car sits around for days or weeks costing money, getting old, and losing value. “Corner Cars” is the alternative that makes a car available to residents whenever they need it — whether it’s for an hour or a week — and only costs for the time it’s used — as little as $5 per hour….
For car-sharing members
Members will enjoy the convenience of never having to worry about finding a parking spot ever again and having a reserved parking space a short walk from home. Those who switch from car ownership can save thousands of dollars per year.For low-income residents
Some residents may need the mobility of a personal vehicle but lack the ability to own one. Car-sharing is an affordable alternative with rates as low as $5 per hour — gas, roadside assistance, navigation system, and insurance included.For other residents
Everyone benefits from car-sharing. Fewer cars on the streets means parking is easier for everyone. Less traffic means safer streets for children, less noise, less pollution, and less wear and tear on roads.
And of course, fewer cars mean benefits to all New Jersey taxpayers (less money needed for road repairs) not to mention environmental benefits that affect the entire state (if not the entire planet)’s population. And, as Streetsblog points out, the city comes out on top as well: Hertz will be paying the city $100 per month for each parking space, for a total of around $50,000. And since shared cars are restricted to residential streets, no meter revenue is lost.
In fact, is there any downside to a program like this?
Tags: car-sharing, Ideas that work
I don’t see what’s innovative about this. How is it different from ZipCar, or its non-profit competitors like Philly Car-Share?
The downside is that it induces more driving for folks that are car-free. which really isn’t so bad
I fail to see how this reduces road repair. Most damage from use of roads is from heavy trucks, not passenger cars. No downsides? How about lost sales tax revenue, lost jobs from not servicing the vehicles or after market vehicle parts sales and the corresponding sales tax revenue?
I get the distinction – it’s the “Citywide” reach of the car sharing network that’s unique. Best of luck to Hoboken. Philadelphia has car sharing for the better part of a decade, with hundreds of car sharing vehicles throughout the City (thanks for PhillyCarShare and Zipcar) with tens of thousands of members.
Jersey has an undeserved tarnished environmental image. Thanks for this post.
I can’t think of a single downside to this, since everyone involved benefits somehow. Fewer cars, more revenue for the city, a profit for the car sharing company, etc. I hope something like this can make a presence across the country; it might free up more money for transit while boosting mobility for everyone.
What’s innovative is that it’s a municipality behind the service. Elsewhere, local governments tolerate car-sharing services, but they don’t actively support them, let alone promote them as a solution to a problem.
@Catbus: Really? The DC government actively supports Zipcar, even giving them curbside parking spots formally used for general street parking. The Bay Area’s City CarShare had the support of Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco when getting started.
Again, yeah, I don’t see what’s so innovative about this.
Isn’t this the same as the already well-established Zipcar program in Seattle, which has probably hundreds of parking spaces around the city? I think there is a similar program in the Bay Area as well.
It’s innovative because the municipality that’s supporting it is in metro NYC. This blog is always focused on metro NYC – I don’t know if it’s intentional or not. From the condescending tone taken toward NJ my guess is that the writers must live in Manhattan – so anything innovative that happens in Hoboken or Jersey City before NYC would grab their attention.
Big Tim, it’s not just you. The NYC-area parochialism is a new thing on Infrastructurist – this wasn’t the case previously. Hell, I live in NYC and I’d like to know more about all the innovation taking place elsewhere.
IMO, the old Infrastructurist took a more macro-scale, birds-eye view of sustainable transportation issues and also put out a lot more original content rather than aggregating links. Not sure where things went wrong but I hope the site can get its old mojo back. I’m saying this with love, btw, because this really is a good site… it’s just not up the standard that it held previously.
Congrats to Hoboken. I helped the District of Columbia participate in citywide car sharing in 2006. We provided some 86 designated curbside spaces to two car-sharing companieis in exchange for certain performance guarantees and liability indemnification. This was done through rulemaking and contracts with each company. This effort supplemented pre-existing car sharing spaces on private property and at some transit stations.
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