Car Sharing / Rental (Car2Go, HourCar, etc.)

[FISHMANPET]

Maybe maybe not. Given how much they're driving them, they're probably underwater on the loan. I guess they could declare bankruptcy, but that seems pretty extreme for what is essentially quitting a job.

E: But the fact that the article doesn't at all discuss this puts it strongly in the column of opinion piece rather than serious journalism.

I wish the left made it easier for me to be a leftist. You'd think having reality generally on our side would be enough, but we're so bad at it, and the right so good at it, that we're drowning in our own whatever.

[mattaudio]

Out of all the decisions in the world one can make, we're really supposed to feel bad for people who buy expensive brand new cars on them and then are underwater? Isn't buying a new car widely known as one of the most stupid decisions one can make financially?

[FISHMANPET]

Yes, and I think what these people did is stupid, but if we just kick them out into the street (or let them kick themselves into the street as it were) I don't really view that as any kind of social benefit. They'd certainly be worse off than if they kept driving.

[FISHMANPET]

Cut throat capitalism has winners and losers, but it all evens out. But that doesn't help you directly when you're unemployed with no assets. Which is why I think a GMI would be good. We have a system right now where the public sector generally assumes all the risk (welfare) and the private sector assumes all the reward (windfall profits). If we skimmed a bit more off the top of that reward, we could be better prepared, financially, to assume the risk.

[mattaudio]

I don't disagree.

[seanrichardryan]

Whoops! http://m.startribune.com/local/287910211.html?section=/

[PhilmerPhil]

^ What does that have to do with car sharing?

Car2go doing well: http://blogs.twincities.com/yourtechweb ... eems-well/

[seanrichardryan]

The article, nothing. The picture, I thought was interesting.

[PhilmerPhil]

Ah. That picture wasn't obvious when I checked the link. There was a video that I half paid attention to at the top.

[xandrex]

^ What does that have to do with car sharing?

Car2go doing well: http://blogs.twincities.com/yourtechweb ... eems-well/

Great to see that Car2Go is doing well. I've been a member since launch and it makes it so much easier to get around. My car is prone to...err, shall we say, periods of disruption, most recently for several weeks in December (it appears water got into my gas tank). While I relied on the bus (or friends driving somewhere anyway) to get me around, having cars I could jump into quickly when I really needed to get somewhere quick was fantastic.

[twincitizen]

Any guesses if/when Car2Go will expand to a Twin Cities suburb?

Candidates: Richfield, St. Louis Park, Edina, St. Anthony Village, Falcon Heights.

Qualities desired: reasonably dense, contiguous with core city, clear borders with next adjacent suburb.

Of those I think Richfield is the easy choice for expansion. It's more or less just more Deep South Minneapolis. Perfectly intact street grid and clear boundaries of 77/494/Xerxes (so cars do not wind up in Edina & Bloomington). It has pretty decent transit service to complement 1-way Car2Go, 1-way transit trips. FYI Richfield is nearly as dense as St. Paul(!). At just 7 square miles it wouldn't add much to the size of the system.

As for snow removal, Richfield doesn't do emergency routes or every other side plowing. Their current policy is pretty much "everybody off the streets" when it snows more than 2", but they tend to just plow around parked vehicles when necessary, rather than any aggressive towing of cars. They will go back and tow / re-plow based on resident complaints of cars that don't get moved. I'm sure they could reach an agreement with Car2Go that the cars wouldn't be towed, or as in Mpls-StP, Car2Go members could move the cars for some free minutes. Plowing around Car2Go's tiny vehicles wouldn't be a huge deal anyways on Richfield's mega-wide sidewalk-less residential streets.

As for the other candidates, SLP is a good one of course, though it is slightly larger that Richfield and has less clear borders with adjacent suburbs (it gets weird on pretty much all sides). Saint Anthony Village would seem an easy addition at just a couple square miles, but I'm not sure about the density/demand.

EDIT: Columbia Heights too, but I left it out due to being outside of Hennepin/Ramsey Counties.

[mulad]

Yeah, Car2Go should expand to at least a few suburbs. I'm a little curious which cities tend to ban on-street parking outright (or at least outside of residential areas). That could become an issue. My hometown of Byron still has an overnight parking ban in winters to allow for snow removal -- do any suburbs have rules like that?

[twincitizen]

Many 2nd-ring suburbs have overnight parking bans in the winter months (Nov. 1 - April 1, AKA the anti-NiceRide months )

Woodbury & Burnsville are two that I'm aware of. I wouldn't be surprised if this was actually the norm in the outer, parking-abundant burbs. However, they're also terrible candidates for Car2Go, so it shouldn't matter.

It would be a shame if any of the dense-ish inner suburbs have the winter overnight parking ban.

[MNdible]

I'd be doubtful that most suburbs can seriously support the density of car locations that would be necessary to make the system work. You need to be able to walk to the nearest car location, and unless you have a lot of users supporting a lot of cars, the system just isn't functional. Even in the extremes of South Minneapolis, I feel it's stretched too thin.

[twincitizen]

You're probably right. Even in the frame of Richfield, most of the density is within a block 66th Street or within a block of 494. In many areas between, you've got vast swaths of 75' wide lots, or 8 (small) houses per blockface. Translated, that is roughly half the density of the lowest density residential areas in Minneapolis (14-15 houses per blockface).

[Tyler]

I wonder what the life cycle is on these cars and when they will start deploying the 2016 model for new cars. These things being so excruciating to drive keeps me from using them vs uber in many instances. I've been keeping an eye on what Smart is doing for that very reason -- and the good news is the 2016 model looks like a massive improvement. So I wouldn't want to expand the system any more right now if it means more of the old model for years to come.

[xandrex]

Of those I think Richfield is the easy choice for expansion. It's more or less just more Deep South Minneapolis. Perfectly intact street grid and clear boundaries of 77/494/Xerxes (so cars do not wind up in Edina & Bloomington). It has pretty decent transit service to complement 1-way Car2Go, 1-way transit trips. FYI Richfield is nearly as dense as St. Paul(!). At just 7 square miles it wouldn't add much to the size of the system.

I don't think you need to worry about them ending up in the wrong city. When I drove from Minneapolis to St. Paul in a Car2Go (to pick up my car from the night before, no less), I got on 280 and there appears to be a small bit outside of either city. I got a pretty aggressive warning multiple times that I was outside the boundaries and wouldn't be able to end my trip.

Plowing around Car2Go's tiny vehicles wouldn't be a huge deal anyways on Richfield's mega-wide sidewalk-less residential streets.

I don't think the issue would be plowing around them...it would be getting your Car2Go out from the snow ridge that the plows created after that. I've had to abandon Car2Go cars a few times because they were simply stuck in their spot, lacking traction, clearance, and the general ability to drive through anything but the clearest of streets.

[mulad]

I wonder how actively Car2Go tracks their cars -- if the vehicles ping back regularly, the company should already have a good idea of which suburbs are already seeing cars being used for errands. It's also easy to see from the map on their main page where people go riiight up to the border (and occasionally a few blocks beyond) to park their cars.

Over the course of years and decades, I think car sharing will be able to expand all over the place. Suburban areas probably need fewer members per car than the city does -- I'm estimating there were about 23 members per car in Minneapolis as of June last year, and each car was still only seeing an average of 1.25 rentals per day. I bet suburbanites will end up using the cars more often.

[mister.shoes]

Southdale has Car2Go parking under the ramp outside Ruby Tuesday. It's actually part of the tiny motorcycle parking lot and is clearly not made for normal-sized cars. I found it quite humorous, actually, to imagine a little C2G pulling up into that lot. Haven't actually seen it happen yet, though.

[twinkess]

Southdale has Car2Go parking under the ramp outside Ruby Tuesday. It's actually part of the tiny motorcycle parking lot and is clearly not made for normal-sized cars. I found it quite humorous, actually, to imagine a little C2G pulling up into that lot. Haven't actually seen it happen yet, though.

I use Car2Go regularly and we considered and dismissed the idea of parking at Southdale, even though we'd love to do shopping there. The chances and consequences of you getting stranded there if someone takes your car while shopping are too high. Car2Go is too expensive to leave the meter running while shopping. I'd use my Enterprise car share for something like that.