I’ve long advocated “car sharing” as one of the many small-bore solutions that, collectively enacted, can relieve traffic congestion in Virginia. (See “Step up to Flex,” May 10, 2004.)
The concept of flex cars, in which subscribers make Internet reservations to rent cars by the hour for short trips, was easy to ridicule a couple of years ago. The number of cars and subscribers in the early pilot projects seemed ludicrously small. But the idea, it appears, is taking off. People are saving big bucks and eliminating major hassles by trading in their cars and relying instead upon mass transit and car sharing. Reports Eric M. Weiss with the Washington Post:
Yesterday, one of the two major car-sharing companies that operate in the Washington region, Zipcar, announced a $25 million investment that will allow it to possibly double the 350 vehicles it already puts on area streets. In June, Zipcar’s rival, District-based Flexcar, announced a major investment by a company started by AOL co-founder Steve Case.
That could set up the Washington area — one of only two major markets where the two companies compete — as a testing ground to see just how far car sharing can go in reducing congestion, pollution and parking woes.
“Some of the highest adoption neighborhoods in the country are in D.C.,” said Scott Griffith, chief executive of Zipcar, based in Cambridge, Mass. He said that in the Dupont Circle and Capitol Hill neighborhoods, where parking can be difficult to find, more than 10 percent of residents older than 21 use the service.
Let’s hear it for the free market, baby!
There is no hope of solving Virginia’s transportation woes through government action only. The government is slow, plodding, bureaucratic and prone to political meddling. We need to open up the transportation market to more innovators like Zipcar and Flexcar. The principle extends to buses, vans, jitneys, taxies and other forms of shared ridership… and to private-sector consortia building new road and transit infrastructure… and to inventors of Intelligent Transportation System services such as those that transmit video/radar traffic data to commuters.
Sadly, most lawmakers are stuck in the mindset that transportation is a problem that only government can solve — with higher taxes. Only a handful of legislators seem interested in unleashing the potential of entrepreneurs and free markets. Maybe Zipcar’s $25 million investment will change a few minds.