Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Flexcar, Zipcar Expand Arlington Service

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Nibbling away at the problem of traffic congestion in one of Virginia’s most densely populated localities, Seattle-based Flexcar and Cambridge, Mass.-based Zipcar have increased their commitment to their car-sharing partnerships with Arlington County. Since the county began the program with the two companies last March, reports the Washington Business Journal, Flexcar and Zipcar have seen a combined 150 percent increase in usage and membership that more than doubled.

The two firms have added a total of 15 additional vehicles, bringing to 40 the total parked at designated locations in the Ballston-Rosslyn corridor, Crystal City and Pentagon City. They plan to add another 15 vehicles in the county before the end of the year.

Pilot project survey results, corroborated with evidence from studies in North America and Europe, show that carsharing: has allowed members to reduce their car ownership; encourages more transit trips; reduces the number of cars on the road; reduces the number of vehicle miles traveled; and provides for a much more efficient use of parking spaces.

Shared car programs like Arlington’s won’t “solve” Virginia’s increasing traffic congestion. There is no single solution. Public policy must encourage a wide variety of solutions–often by partnering, as Arlington has done, with wild-eyed entrepreneurs with crazy ideas. It would be encouraging if Sen. Chichester’s transportation task force–manned primarily by Republicans, members of the business community and others who profess to believe in free markets–chose to solicit innovative ideas from the private sector.

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Comments

  1. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    These things make such a small dent in traffic that they’re almost not even worth talking about…

    I guess if we had 1000 solutions like this they all might add up to something.

  2. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Exactly. Let’s try having 1,000 solutions. Right now, we have only two: Build more roads, build more rail.

  3. John K. Avatar
    John K.

    You’re right, Jim. What’s most encouraging is that the inspiration and ingenuity of this type of a project apparently comes from the private sector. Even if these projects fail, these guys set the bar just a bit higher for the conventional thinking of our current crop of legislators and governmental administrators.

  4. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    I’m not yet convinced it makes any difference. If ten people have a need for a car X amount, it probably makes little difference if that X amount is used in one car or shared bt ten cars: road miles and time on the road are the same.

    However, if a car is not readily available (have to walk to get it, not available when you want) then some marginal trips might be avoided. You are probably less likely to go for a pleasure drive (is there still such a thing?) if you are paying by the hour.

    If we can come up with a thousand such solutions, we will eventually hit one that works, maybe. Who wants to be the first to sign up for a thousand start-up subsidies?

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    First, don’t sell that commission short, Jim — if you had heard Charles Hawkins comments about the need to rethink the whole problem, you might be a bit more hopeful. Second, the underlying motivation for market-based solutions — a potential profit — is dissipating rapidly as the retail price of gasoline slips back below $2 a gallon. You want 1,000 points of transportation light? Slap a $1 a gallon tax on gas!

  6. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Anonymous, You are right, I should withhold judgment on the Chichester Commission until we see what they do. … I also agree totally with your idea of boosting the gasline tax. We should strip out the half-cent sales tax (which taxes people even if they don’t drive) and replace the funds with a gasoline tax. If we’re ever going to solve the transportation problem, motorists need to change their behavior. The price of gasoline is one way to do that. Encouraging private entrepreneurs to provide lots of options to one-man-one-car is another.

  7. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    We don’t have a transportation problem. There is plenty of transportation available at high speeds and reasonable prices, as long as you don’t want to go the same place as everyone else. It makes no difference whether you are talking roads, rail, or air: the same situation is true.

    What we have is a community balance problem: too many jobs in places people don’t wan’t to live, and increasingly, won’t go.

    Increasingly, in-town employers are being hit with higher and higher salary demands in order to keep employees.

    How many times do you think employers will get hit with that argument before they decide to re-locate?

    You profess to be a free market type, yet you wish to manipulate behavior with prices and land use controls. OK, but, if we had an extra dollar of gas tax, my friend would have had to raise the price of a counter-offer even more. If he had to relocate his home because of gas prices, no doubt his counter offer request would have been even higher.

    I don’t have a problem with raising gas taxes, but based on the idea that those that enjoy the benefits should pay, where would the gas tax go? To roads?

    It is perfectly OK and desirable for entrepreneurs to offer alternatives to one-man one car. Right now we have the Segway, the hybrids, Metro, flex cars, and what else? The Segway is still one man, but it shares with the hybrids the potential for lower costs and less impact.

    Segway has two problems: price and utility. Hybrids share the same problems:price plus, fully loaded their mileage drops, and you seldom see one towing an RV.

    Any entrepreneur that comes up against the car will have the same problems. The price will have to be a lot lower to make up for the difference in utility, and that lower price works against entrepreneurs seeking a profit.

    Maybe the reason some Republicans favor suburban expansion is that they understand the economics.

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