Citywide car-sharing plans accelerate

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Hoping drivers will ditch their rides and rent one instead, Baltimore transportation officials said they are putting the final touches on the first citywide car-sharing program.

After a two-year effort, officials at the Baltimore Parking Authority said they are creating a nonprofit organization to start a car share, giving drivers quick and easy access to a pool of rental cars. Organizers said they’ve written a business plan that includes low hourly rates, free memberships and cars in the city’s most popular neighborhoods.

What’s left, authority spokeswoman Tiffany James said, is the cash to fund it.

“It will allow people to feel free to get rid of their cars or maybe just one of their cars,” James said. “We want people to have this as a safety net.”

Car sharing was introduced in Baltimore on the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University in March 2007, where four cars are available to students, faculty and staff. Operated by Seattle-based Flexcar, $6 hourly rates include gas, insurance, 150 free miles and 24-hour emergency service.

Flexcar, which also operates in College Park, applied to open shop in Baltimore in 2006, and lawmakers approved designating certain parking spaces for the program, James said. But Flexcar abandoned the plans when the company merged with Boston-based Zipcar.

The new nonprofit will be modeled on a car share in Philadelphia started in 2002 by five volunteers with what co-founder Clayton Lane called “pocket change.” Now with 40,000 members — and growing by 3,000 each month— the program is the world’s largest regional car share, he said.

And, Lane said, it could thrive in Baltimore, too.

“We all are doing this because we want to help our city and help the environment, but it’s got to work for them,” Lane said. “It really comes down to convenience and affordability.”

jmalarkey@baltimoreexaminer.com

Advertisement