One of my colleagues lives near me and is a member of Streetcar and uses the car based in Park St car park (about 20 minutes walk away) fairly regularly. She's very keen on it, and I think it is an alternative to owning a car for her family.
I keep dithering over joining. The current nearest space is far enough away to be a pain especially as I usually have Charles to take into account and his current car seat is not very portable. For most occasions we want a car, it's for a weekend away and that's still only a few times a year, in which case weekend deals at the local rental agencies are usually cheaper.
The things I would use a car-club car for are things I currently have workarounds for or manage without - part of me would just like to make life a bit easier for me personally and part of me wants to make it easier for everyone who doesn't drive to get around and do things. E.g. it's very frustrating that the local NCT branch always hold their nearly-new sales on a Sunday in a local village with a crap bus service because "everyone drives". If I join the car club/get a lift I can go, but then I'm perpetuating the "everyone drives" meme.
In any case, I have a cunning scheme to persuade our newly-launched residents association into investigating getting a parking space assigned on our heavily-parked up street, because I think it might have a beneficial effect in allowing quite a few local people to give up second/only cars and maybe reducing the local parking pressure. That won't help my personal dilemma in going from 0-car to car-club, but it might help my neighbourhood a bit.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-09-16 11:54 am (UTC)I keep dithering over joining. The current nearest space is far enough away to be a pain especially as I usually have Charles to take into account and his current car seat is not very portable. For most occasions we want a car, it's for a weekend away and that's still only a few times a year, in which case weekend deals at the local rental agencies are usually cheaper.
The things I would use a car-club car for are things I currently have workarounds for or manage without - part of me would just like to make life a bit easier for me personally and part of me wants to make it easier for everyone who doesn't drive to get around and do things. E.g. it's very frustrating that the local NCT branch always hold their nearly-new sales on a Sunday in a local village with a crap bus service because "everyone drives". If I join the car club/get a lift I can go, but then I'm perpetuating the "everyone drives" meme.
In any case, I have a cunning scheme to persuade our newly-launched residents association into investigating getting a parking space assigned on our heavily-parked up street, because I think it might have a beneficial effect in allowing quite a few local people to give up second/only cars and maybe reducing the local parking pressure. That won't help my personal dilemma in going from 0-car to car-club, but it might help my neighbourhood a bit.