Dan McGrath writes: > > This will be interesting to watch. Anybody else remember Yellow Bicycles?
If the implication is that hOurCar won't work (yellow bikes were free, unsecured, and stolen, and the program collapsed), I think the analogy is wrong. HOurCar is a membership program organized by a substantive group (St. Paul's Neighborhood Energy Consortium, which has run that city's recycling program for years). HourCar is membership-based; you can't just jump in the cars and go. The best idea may be pay for your car insurance only by use (it's included in the per-hour, per-mile fee). I know insurance companies rate you by annual miles driven (among other things) but it can't come as cheaply as this. On to Dyna: > Gee, I've had friends that have shared cars for years... but never > bothered with press releases or shaking down government and local > foundations to pay for their car. Well, great! But if you can get 150 friends to share six cars (hOurCar's start-up) then you've got an analogy. > Two rental cars in each of these neighborhoods isn't going to impact > much of anything. Come on; you have to start somewhere. By that measure, we should tell people who doorknock in political campaigns not to do it because "one or two blocks isn't going to change anything." It's a start and one effort among many. > > Congresswoman Betty McCollum, Senators Norm Coleman > > and Mark Dayton, and Congressman James Oberstar led > > efforts at the federal level to secure a $275,000 > > appropriation to help launch hOurCar. > > I know Prius are grossly overpriced, but that comes to over $45,000 a > Prius. Could it possibly be there are other start-up costs besides just acquiring the Priuses? Of course. > That $275,000 could have given thirty odd 3 year old low mileage > sedans from the GSA, state, and county motor pools to low income > families so they can get to work, school, etc.. Over put at least 10 15 > passenger vans running on biodiesel on the streets. Ah, the Taxpayer League argument against transit. And who's going to pay for the repair costs of the sedans, fuel costs and insurance? Buying a car is only one reason the poor don't have cars; operating costs are far bigger over time. And my guess is the cost of operation for those poor folks will be higher than the use-based fees of hOurCar which cover fuel and insurance. There's another reason this argument is fallacious: why can't we do both (or all three)? Certainly, there are bigger wastes of money (if you believe hOurCar is that) to fund your biodiesel. You could start organizing to get such a program � but beware of being ridiculed if you start too small! > Either way they're about the most expensive car rentals in town- $120 > a day plus mileage! Even if I used HourCar only one day a month it > would cost over twice as much as my late model pickup costs. And > instead of having to transfer buses to get to an HourCar location, my > vehicle is right in my driveway any time I need it... A number of fallacious assumptions. First, folks won't rent hOurCars for a day (otherwise, they'd be called dAyCars). They will rent them for an hour or two or three to make trips not covered by public transit, or routes that would be godawful expensive by taxi (wonder what their day rates are?). Also, by putting the hubs in densely populated Uptown and Loring, the assumption is people will be able to walk to the hub from their homes/apartments, pick up the car, use it, drop it off, walk home. > > our emphasis on environmental benefits. Our signature > > vehicle�the Toyota Prius�is known for its fuel > > efficiency. > > Can you run a Prius on renewables? No. No, but renewables are not all that much better for the environment (see: ethanol; the argument there is keeping the cash in the US, not pollution). This is still a good thing. And if 150 people can share six cars (instead of collectively buying lots more cars they use occasionally), you save all the environmental costs of building/maintaining those extra cars. What's interesting is that car-sharing is a collective action - sort of like unionizing or political organizing. It's easy to be cynical about all three, and our society seems pretty hardened about the "s" word (sharing). There are lots of reasons car-sharing might not work, but this isn't an expensive trial effort. Let the baby idea try to walk instead of strangling it (metaphor, people!) in the crib. David Brauer Kingfield REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
