Bay Area Car Sharing Program Spurring Fundamental Changes

“This is the data we’ve been waiting for – it proves that car-sharing is changing the car culture for the better,” said City CarShare Executive Director Larry Magid. The country’s first major study of the impacts of car-sharing, financed by the Federal Highway Administration’s Value Pricing Program shows the San Francisco Bay Area’s City CarShare, a non-profit group, is having measurable impacts in reducing driving, transportation costs, private car ownership, and environmental hazards. The findings by Robert Cervero, a professor with Univeristy of Califonia at Berkeley’s Institute of Urban and Regional Development, are the latest in his three-year evaluation of the City CarShare’s effects on travel, car ownership, the environment, parking and the quality of life in neighborhoods. Cervero’s study shows that many hoped-for benefits have occurred: * 30% of households that participate in City CarShare have sold one or more of their privately-owned cars; 67% have chosen not to purchase an additional car.* Most trips are made outside of peak travel hours.* Overall per-capita automobile travel among City CarShare members has dropped 47 percent, while use of public transit, walking and bicycling by CarShare members has increased.* City CarShare is saving 13,000 miles of vehicle travel, 720 gallons of […]

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