Vroom, Vroom: Car Sharing Comes to Austin

If you're one of those enviro-avengers styled after the heroes of I [Heart] Huckabees who chained themselves to bulldozers in the name of protecting Mother Earth, a new environmentally friendly business called Austin CarShare may appeal to you.

Like Zipcar, it aims to provide urbanites with short-term car rentals, something especially useful to students who typically use mass transit, or to families with an occasional use for a second car. The neat thing is that, unlike Zipcar, it's structured as a non-profit that intends to feed money back into the local economy.

Here's an introductory e-mail from one supporter, David Foster of the Texas Branch of Clean Water Action. He's trying to keep road runoff out of our beloved springs. So help a brother out by renting a late-model vehicle once in a while, instead of purchasing that fume-spewing jalopy!

Subject: Car Sharing is Coming to Austin!

This is to let you know that Austin CarShare, a new non-profit, is now pre-enrolling members and will be launching Austin's first car share program this fall. Service will initially be focused on the downtown and University of Texas areas.

Carsharing is a service that provides members with 24-hour access to a fleet of cars on-demand at an hourly rate that includes gas, insurance, and maintenance. Carsharing helps reposition the automobile as one transportation choice among several rather than the sole, default choice. Studies have shown that car share programs help increase transit use, reduce emissions, and lower the overall costs of transportation.

Austin CarShare will be holding a press conference next Monday, July 24, at 11 AM at the Plaza at City Hall. Please come and show your support for carsharing in Austin!

For more information, including information on membership levels and how you can join, please see www.austincarshare.org or contact me.

Thanks,

David Foster
State Program Director
Clean Water Action

Catch you at City Hall next Monday? It's located at 301 W. 2nd Street.

Image courtesy of Library of Congress/Duke University Archives