Events have converged to make me want to write about ZipCar. When visiting my sister in Seattle, she picked me up from the airport in a sparkly clean Honda Civic Hybrid ZipCar, and then someone coincidentally friended me on Facebook who works for ZipCar. Wow, it’s just begging me to talk about it! What a smart way to simplify your life and expenses.
ZipCar is a service that allows you to dispense with owning a car all together and use one only when you need it. You avoid the time and costs involved with car payments, maintenance, parking fees, insurance, and even gas. It’s all included. You make a reservation, go to the parking lot where your reserved car lives, and wave your "ZipCard" across the window sensor to open the door. You drive it around for the duration of your reserved time, then return it to the spot where you picked it up. You can have it for a couple of hours or even a few days. Click this map shown here for a larger version, showing what cities currently have this service. (Notice there is NO ZipCar service yet in Texas! Curses!)
We are always talking about simplifying, having fewer possessions that require maintenance, and saving time and money. This is a really cool option for people whose lifestyle and urban setting allow more walking and less driving. Bravo!
I used the Zipcar in Vancouver BC and was very impressed with the system. I think it’s great if location is very close to where you’re staying and you use for short bursts of time. It’s also very fun to use state of the art cars – if you’re thinking of buying a new car – like a Mini. On the other hand, using a rental car agency is about 60-70% cheaper per day.
This system of driving is very popular in Philadelphia. I don’t think it will do it for me in Los Angeles– I work all over the city. But I can see it working in, say, Santa Monica… where people would use it to get around in a certain geographic area.
John
Austin now has Austincarshare.org
– for west campus, downtown and Hyde Park areas. Free parking at city parking meters! And they have a pickup truck as well.