Is Philly the Carshare Capital of the Country?

35,000 Philly Carshare members may make it so. The December issue of Philadelphia magazine features a wonderfully fun and informative in-depth article (Good To Go, by Jason Fagone, December 2007; Philadelphia Magazine) on the history of what is now, according to their web site, the "world's largest regional carsharing organization."

On October 5th Philly Carshare signed up member # 30,000. In October they signed up a record 4,000 new members and they are now over 35,000. And 10,000 of these members have given up their cars. Now that's success! How'd they do it?

Author Jason Fagone takes readers on an odyssey that begins in 2002 with five co-founders, $25,000 in start-up funds and a dream. In the beginning the pitch was heavy on the environment and civic benefits. But the pitch shifted to bottom line wallet concerns and everyone saw the light. The City, the Parking Authority and SEPTA (the City's transit agency) all got on board. The city even got rid of 330 cars and started saving $7 million a year as a result. Philly Carshare management now believes they could someday get to a million members. That's the number of people in the region who don't commute by car, minus the number of people who live in neighborhoods too sprawled-out to support carshare. To get there, Philly Carshare is on a mission to rapidly expand and put cars in every neighborhood.

They want to make it mainstream. Says the founders, "It's cheap. It's there. It works. Simple." What Philly Carshare aspires to is a low-key ubiquity. Let's wish our friends in Philly continued success and let's hope that the newly combined Zipcar/Flexcar merger in our area can meet with similar success. We'll all be winners if it does.

Picture at top: Philly Carshare founders Tanya Seaman and Clayton Lane with the Key to the City of Philadelphia.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a biking/Metro commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.

Comments

[Allen Muchnick]

So what, if any, reductions in the Arlington County government and Public Schools passenger vehicle fleets have resulted from all the carshare vehicles now parked along the R-B corridor and elsewhere in Arlington? Is this even part of the Fresh AIRE initiative? Here's an area where the County and Schools might benefit our environment and reduce the cost of government.

[James]

Great write up Chris. It's really amazing how popular the Philly CarShare service has become over the past couple years. I think the rapid growth is mostly due to the amount of students and young professionals that occupy the city, and that the younger population are much more aware of the economic, energy, and environmental benefits of the program. Also, the younger residents are much more likely to support a local organization rather than a national one, it's a Philly thing!