by Steve Gutmann
Amanda and I have always felt a little bit marginalized by our decision not to own a car.
Car-free living may be perfectly normal in cities like London, New York, or San Francisco, where good transit systems are in place, but choosing to live without wheels here in Portland, Oregon, is not particularly common. Most Portlanders assume that they need a car, and our conscious choice not to have one is hard for them to understand. A colleague at work jokingly calls me a "wacky communist biker guy," and many who see me riding to work in a coat and tie probably have similar thoughts. A stranger once asked me if I had lost my license for "too many DWIs." Amanda's mother offered to buy us a car, assuming that money was the issue. Cars are a powerful symbol of freedom in our society, and not owning one isn't just odd, it's perceived as a real hardship.
We see it differently. To us, un-motorized living is liberty. People who fight rush hour traffic in fancy cars seem to spend more time driving in ugly places than doing things they really want to do. Some commuters spend over ten hours a week hurtling through landscapes devoid of subtlety, texture and beauty. No thanks! It seems obvious that driving is the real burden; real freedom begins when you get rid of the car.
Where did we get this nutty perspective? Several years ago, Amanda and I taught in Rome. We discovered the joys of urban living while making our way through one of the world's great cities by bike, bus, subway, and train. We met the local shopkeepers, took long walks on cobblestone streets, listened to street musicians, learned some local history, sampled a huge range of delightful pastas and pastries, and drank coffee in the sun. We got used to life in a vibrant city.
When we returned home, we found Portlanders working hard to recreate much of what is wonderful about the great cities of Europe. We decided to move to a dense, vibrant, walkable neighborhood with nearby services, and only to consider jobs within a reasonable (i.e. bikeable) commute. Trading square footage for convenience, we bought a condominium in a hundred-year-old converted apartment building. Located in one of the older sections of town, our home is just a short walk from three grocery stores, a movie theater, a couple of parks, and several restaurants, cafes, and bars. All that, and all of the diversions of downtown are a ten-minute bike ride away. We didn't buy a car.
But Portland isn't Rome. There are plenty of roses, but there's minimal sunshine. It also isn't particularly easy to navigate by bus. We quickly found that there were times--about once every couple of weeks--when we really wished we had a car. We usually needed one for short trips: to pick up a piece of furniture, to visit my parents in the suburbs, to buy plants for the balcony, or to go to a party.
Yet we really didn't want to borrow a car. Imagine, after months of insisting that we really didn't want (or need) a car, having to call or show up on a friend's doorstep and, like a teenager, ask to borrow the keys. No way. We couldn't swallow our pride.
So we put on our rain slickers, pretended like we were having fun, and rode our bikes or a bus through the Portland drizzle…often arriving at our destination soaking wet. One time we transferred busses three times and finally arrived at a party--stressed out and squabbling--to find that most of our friends had already left. Our decision to live car-free began to feel less like a principled lifestyle choice and more like a pointless sacrifice. It was ecologically responsible but psychologically unsustainable. We went back and forth for a while, but eventually started looking for a car.
But before we succumbed to car ownnership, CarSharing Portland saved the day.
Modeled after similar programs in Europe, CarSharing Portland (CSP) is basically a membership-based hourly car rental service.
Amanda and I joined immediately. Here's how it works: After collecting a $25 application fee, CSP checks all new applicants' driving records and credit histories. Once new members are given a brief orientation they pay a $10 per month (or $100 per year) membership fee and receive a key that fits every car in the fleet.
CSP has currently has 18 vehicles--mostly Dodge Neons, a couple of Saturns, one Honda Insight (a hybrid-electric sportscar that gets over 70 mpg), and one Toyota Pickup--most of which are on three-year leases and are therefore practically new. Each car is parked in a designated spot, which is easily identified by a stenciled "reserved for CarSharing" logo and a sign. Cars are located downtown and throughout Portland's close-in, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. 282 members share these 18 vehicles. The company adds new cars to the fleet as new members join, so there are typically between 15-18 members per car.
When a member wants to use a car, she calls a local number and, using a touch-tone registration system, reserves the closest available vehicle for how ever long she needs it. If the car she wants is not available, she reserves the next closest one. With a little bit of advance planning availability is hardly ever a problem, but getting a car on short notice sometimes requires a short bike ride if the closest cars are already in use. All CSP parking spots are equipped with bike racks where members can lock up their bikes while using a car.
CSP keeps the vehicles clean and well maintained, and there's a fleet gas card in the glove compartment of each vehicle to fill 'er up when the gas drops below a quarter tank.. Members record the mileage when they begin a trip and again when they return the car to its spot. CSP's computer multiplies the hours used by $1.50 and the mileage by $0.40, adds them up, and automatically bills the user's credit card. Gas, maintenance, repairs and insurance are all included. If a member returns a car late and leaves someone stranded, the stranded member is entitled to either a CSP credit or a cab--at the late person's expense. This rarely happens.
The daily maximum charge is $45. However, CSP is really designed for short-term use, and in order to avoid having one member tie up a car for long periods of time, CSP has arranged for members to receive reduced rates for full-day or weekend rentals with Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
We've been members now for two years. Amanda and I CarShare (yes, it's a verb in our household) whenever riding bikes, walking, or using mass transit is impractical or daunting. We used to ride our bikes to visit my parents in the suburbs, but the trip took an hour each way, so we rarely visited. It's 20 minutes and about $15 if we CarShare--and Mom usually cooks us dinner. When it's raining (it does that in Portland once in a while…) we no longer have to choose between arriving soggy and staying at home. Instead, we drive. Usually we walk three blocks to pick up the car together, but if it's really pouring or I'm feeling gentlemanly, I go pick up a car (either by foot or bike) and bring it around to our building. Valet service.
CarSharing offers a wonderful combination: living with less and having more. On one hand, Amanda and I share 18 vehicles with 282 people--that's 6.4% of one car for each of us. In a typical month the two of us drive a total of about 100 miles and our combined transportation bill is about $60. (By way of comparison, the American Automobile Association says owning and operating a modest, relatively new sedan is $5,762 ($480 a month, or $15 a day). On the other hand, on any given day we have, within ten blocks of home, our choice of four different cars! It's like a public library--with cars instead of books.
Amanda and I may yet buy a car someday, but it no longer feels inevitable. Portland's transit system continues to improve, and the city is filling in with more, denser development as "empty nesters" trade in their suburban homes for urban townhouses and condominiums. More Portlanders are commuting by bike, thereby increasing demand for bike lanes, racks, and showers at workplaces. Even traveling to Seattle or Eugene without a car is getting easier, thanks to improved Amtrak service.
But not all CarSharing Portland members are carless. A friend of ours who just joined is visiting Portland for the summer. She didn't want to drive her car across the country, and since she doesn't need a car every day, CarSharing makes sense. Some one-car families use CarSharing as a second car. And still others drive their own vehicle most days, and use CarSharing to have occasional use of the pickup truck. We hear about some of these people--and about CSP news like new vehicles, new vehicle locations, member discounts, rule changes, etc.--through a monthly newsletter that arrives with our itemized bill.
Although most CSP members are currently individuals and families, CSP founder Dave Brook has recently begun to approach businesses, too. Apparently many people drive to work not because they dislike mass transit, but because they need a car during the day for a doctor's appointment, a business meeting, or a lunch date. CSP is already placing cars downtown, and Brook thinks that if more employees have access to a car at work they might find other ways to commute. Some companies (including my employer ShoreBank Pacific) may even begin using CSP as an informal "fleet." Meanwhile, the CSP fleet is expanding. The Honda Insight has been a big hit, and Brook will be adding a Toyota Prius, another hybrid-electric car, to the mix later this year. There's even a rumor circulating about a plan to add a Mazda Miata.
While already quite popular in Europe, car sharing is now on the rise in North America. Canada already has groups in Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City. Farther south, Flexcar just launched in Seattle, ZipCar opens for business in Boston this summer, and City CarShare of San Francisco should be rolling about the time this issue hits the streets. Several other projects are in the planning sages in cities ranging from Cleveland to Boulder to Washington, D.C.
If the concept truly catches on and other entrepreneurs jump on the bandwagon, it doesn't take much imagination to see where the trend could lead: BoatSharing, TractorSharing, ScooterSharing, OutdoorGearSharing and ToolSharing. "StuffSharing" businesses may soon be offering Americans a new formula for the good life: more value, flexibility and choice; less cost, consumption, pollution and clutter. Maybe I'm crazy, but it feels like this could become a trend. Who knows? Someday borrowing rather than owning may even become stylish!
Thanks to CarSharing Portland, Amanda and I survived our near brush with terminal motorization. Phew! By most standards our lives are still pretty slow-paced: our daily round rarely takes us more than a mile or two from home, we hardly ever venture over Portland's West Hills (too steep) or beyond East 82nd Avenue (too far, and not enough bike lanes). Sometimes we literally go weeks without traveling on a highway or seeing a strip mall.
Instead, on weekends we walk downtown or hike in nearby Forest Park. Sometimes we cycle to visit friends, wander downtown to Powell's Books, or check out an exhibit at the art museum. On Sunday mornings you'll typically find us reading the paper at the local café or--if the sun's out--either hiking with friends ("If you drive we'll bring a picnic") or exploring an unfamiliar neighborhood on our bikes. In one sense it's true that we don't "get around" much: we don't go to lots of places that we don't really want to visit anyway.
Provincial? Maybe, but we know our city, our neighborhood and our neighbors well. Oh, and in the process we keep tons of pollution out of the atmosphere, not to mention the fact that we save the $5,762 apiece that we'd otherwise spend on cars. What do we do with the extra dough? Some of it gets put away, and the rest we spend traveling--to places we really want to go.
Steve Gutmann works for ShoreBank Pacific, the nation's first environmental bank, and volunteers on the board of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. He and his wife Amanda Potter use CarSharing Portland for personal and business errands.
"On the whole, you find wealth much more in use than in ownership." Aristotle
