Car Sharing in Chicago: Extending the Transit System

Car sharing is an innovation based on location efficiency--one of the big concepts driving change in American communities, report Peter Plastrik and Theodore Staton in this excerpt from Chapter 3, "Location Efficiency: Tapping the Power of Proximity," of the book they are releasing on the nuPOLIS site.

In March 2008, Sharon Feigon awaited the delivery of 50 new cars—Hondas and Toyotas, most with hybrid engines—that would be parked in neighborhoods around Chicago for thousands of people to use.  Not rental cars or taxis, these vehicles would add to the fleet of a fast-growing not-for-profit enterprise that just a few years earlier launched “car sharing” in the city, a mobility innovation that defies conventional thinking about Americans’ love affair with their automobiles.

I-GO Car Sharing had more than 10,000 members—Chicago residents who pay to use the company’s cars when they want, but enjoy the financial benefits of not owning the vehicle. “The annual cost of owning and operating a car in Chicago is about $7,000,” says Feigon, I-GO’s CEO, “and studies show that 95 percent of the time the car is just sitting.  Our members save as much as $4,000 a year by using I-GO cars instead, in combination with mass transit and the occasional taxi ride.  We have members who told us they used the savings to buy a condo or pay their college tuition. Why sink your money into a car, a depreciating asset, when you don’t have to?”

The attraction of car sharing’s financial savings is amplified by its “green savings.”  People drive fewer miles when they share cars instead of owning one, which results in less traffic congestion, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. “The number one predictor of how far you will drive is whether you own a car,” Feigon says. “Driving becomes a part of your identity.  But once you take ownership out of the equation—and still provide easy access to a car—people organize their travel differently.  The car becomes an extension of the transit system, another option.”

Read more about car sharing and location efficiency...