I Feel Virtuous

Prompted by the premature death of my beloved 1990 Ford Escort, the absence of a down payment for another car, and encouragement from Kvatch, Jody and I recently signed up for City Car Share. It's a non-profit service that gives carless urbanites access to cars for short trips at a reasonable cost ($4/hour plus mileage).

You should know that on a visceral level, I'm extremely anti-car. I didn't drive at all until I was 29, and did so then only because my wife insisted on it. Still, in the 9 years we've been living in the Richmond--with a car and a garage space--I have, I realized, come to rely overmuch on my own vehicle. So losing it has entailed something of an adjustment. The question was whether the Car Share thing would adequately fill the gap.

On Saturday, I used it for the first time, and it was remarkably painless. They have one- or two-car 'pods' all over the city; I used the one at 24th & Clement, just under a mile from us. I reserved it online (very easy, with a nice intuitive interface), walked over to the lot, drove to Costco and Trader Joe's and loaded up the car, dropped stuff off at home, and dropped off the car. No wrinkles, no catches, no waiting in line (except at Costco, of course). Cool. I had been impressed by how well designed the system was, but to have that confirmed in practice was very nice.

This isn't The Solution, but it does chip away at the problem. By making it much easier to get by without a car, they can (potentially) reduce the number of cars in the city as well as the overall amount of driving. Relying on City Car Share forces us to think about driving--to plan and consolidate trips, rather than just driving to the store whenever we feel like it.

That's an adjustment everyone would do well to make.

[That's all, folks]