Clearing the Roads

Grace Kim refuses to own a car. But at least once a month, the Seattle architect drives 30 miles to the suburbs to visit her mother. If she's in the mood, she'll cruise out to the airport to pick up friends. Occasionally, she wants a car to lug home groceries in bulk or try a new restaurant across town. And when clients need to visit a building site, Kim is at the wheel.

All that's possible because Kim and her husband, architect Michael Mariano, are members of Flexcar, one of more than a dozen car-sharing companies revving up across the U.S. As such, the pair have only to jump on the Internet or call a local number to reserve one of several vehicles parked in their neighborhood. They can choose between a Honda, a Lexus, a minivan for carting equipment or, for a jaunty weekend outing, a silver Mazda Miata. They can enter the car any time of night or day with a security-coded electronic card, get charged by the hour thanks to an in-car transmitter, and receive the bill at the end of the month. "We're ecstatic," says Kim.

You don't have to own a well to get water or a generator to get electricity. Must you own a car (or two or three) to drive? "You can join a mobility plan, like you join a cell-phone plan," says Dan Sturges, a transportation researcher for WestStart, a nonprofit based in Pasadena, Calif. "It is self-service, on-demand, pay as you go. And you get different vehicles for different needs."

It's a new way of thinking for the U.S.'s gridlocked cities--hassle-free, hourly rental, a concept that has been popular in Europe for two decades. For every vehicle in a car-sharing fleet, transportation planners say about 10 cars are taken off the roads. Moreover, when drivers pay by the hour, they tend to drive less. They walk more, take the occasional bus or clump their errands together in one trip. While car sharing is now available in nine big cities and a score of smaller towns, in many places the operations are still seedling, with just a few cars. Expansion is under way, however, and car-sharing companies plan to bring the service to more than two dozen major metropolitan areas--a trend that could eventually remove tens of thousands of cars from the highways, reducing pollution, energy use and congestion.

Cities love the idea and are actively encouraging it. In Seattle, the municipal government runs a "One Car Challenge," doling out $50 a month in free Flexcar use for a year to people who can prove they sold their family's second car in favor of car sharing. In Portland, Ore., people whose automobiles fail emissions tests get $500 worth of free Flexcar use if they junk their cars. Outside Washington, the Virginia suburbs of Alexandria and Arlington pay membership fees for any residents who want to join a car-sharing plan. In Greenbelt, Md., the city leases a vehicle from Zipcar, a Massachusetts-based car-sharing firm, stationing it at a senior-citizens complex and renting it to elderly residents for only $1 an hour. And in Philadelphia, officials are auctioning off 329 vehicles from the municipal fleet and using PhillyCarShare, a local nonprofit, as an alternative. Projected savings: $1 million a year.