By Mike Nordin
You may have heard of car sharing in the news or possibly while visiting a city like Portland, San Francisco, the Twin Cities or Madison. Or maybe you haven’t.
You may have heard of car sharing in the news or possibly while visiting a city like Portland, San Francisco, the Twin Cities or Madison. Or maybe you haven’t.
Sharing a car, hmmm – am I going to lend my own car to someone else? No – actually it’s a service where you are able to give up the hassle of owning your own vehicle (or vehicles) – often saving you the cost of a car payment, insurance, maintenance and gas while providing you with a car when you need it. Let’s face it – most of the time the car – if you own one – is sitting in your driveway, carport or garage, collecting pine needles and other items. Car sharing frees up those worries by having someone else take responsibility for a car.
My vision for DuluthCar is having fuel efficient cars (or maybe even one light-duty truck or minivan) available at “hubs” throughout the City of Duluth. The cars could be reserved for one hour or several hours for a fee based on how much you use the car and how far you drive. Drivers would be “registered” to use the service and, once approved, could reserve a car using a convenient online reservation system or by phone. Sound futuristic? This is happening in Minneapolis/St. Paul with 15 Toyota Prius hybrid vehicles available 24/7 to several hundred car sharing members (see http://www.hourcar.org/).
Some of the myriad of benefits to car sharing in Duluth could include: re-energizing the DTA bus service by placing hubs near where people already catch the bus, having fewer cars on the streets, making more public parking available, access to a car for people with a decent driving record but who don’t own a car, cutting greenhouse gas emissions – you get the idea.
Is car sharing for everyone? No – if you need to commute regularly where, say the DTA doesn’t go, then it probably wouldn’t work for you. But, if you already ride (or could ride) the bus to work and only needed a car for errands, then it might be worth seriously considering. Even downsizing from a two-car household to one-car would be possible. A business or university with a fleet of vehicles could greatly benefit from enrolling in a car sharing service if their fleet cars are driven throughout the city during regular business hours.
I hope this article sparks enough interest in a “DuluthCar” program to get things happening. Please contact me at DuluthCar@gmail.com if you have questions or, better yet want to help make it happen!
Mike Nordin
Stay-at-home Dad in Duluth
