Rethinking Our Relationships with Cars

opting out Rethinking our relationships with cars ohn Verster’s work life is a maze of logistics. As the managing director of Changing Places Vancouver, a service that helps senior citizens downsize from Jtheir long-time homes to more manageable living arrangements, Verster and his sub-contractors are on the road nearly every day. With mini-vans, pick- up trucks and sedans, they’re able to coordinate the practical tasks involved in one of life’s most delicate stages. Verster’s access to a fleet of vehicles THE Greater GOOD affords him the appearance of an established businessman when, in Partnerships between cooperatives, credit unions and reality, he has been in operation for just over a year — and he doesn’t carsharing organizations have created a practical alternative own a vehicle nor does he plan to buy one. The expenses are just too to the non-sustainable much for Verster and his wife Tara. “With our old ’91 Chevy, privately-owned, single- occupancy vehicle we spent $400 some months just on upkeep and repairs.” BY MARY FRANCES HILL Courtesy AutoShare NOVEMBER 2011 • ENTERPRISE 33 Instead Verster relies on Modo The Car of California scholar Susan Shaheen. Co-op, a carsharing cooperative with 243 In her study Worldwide Carsharing Growth: vehicles available to some 7,800 members in An International Comparison, Shaheen, together the Greater Vancouver Area. Verster and Tara with researcher Adam Cohen, collected joined the co-op as a couple in 2008, when it survey results from international carsharing was called the Canadian Auto Network. They specialists from 21 countries in 2006. found it so useful and convenient that in 2009, just two months after launching a new The beginning business venture, Verster decided to become a While there is evidence of carsharing in Europe business member as well. “For one project, I’ll during the 1940s, the movement, as we know it use a vehicle six times, transporting goods to today, began in Lucerne, Switzerland, in 1987. It auctions and charities and the like. I love was seven years later that Canada’s first operation, using them. It’s very convenient.” Communauto, took root in Quebec. Inspired by Verster is part of a growing population Europeans, and the fact that carsharing could of urbanites who’ve opted out of private car find success in another Canadian city, Vancouver Member- ownership in favour of membership in a student Tracy Axelson set-up shop three years carsharing organization, some of which are later in 1997. Her husband took the honour of to-vehicle ratios cooperatives, while others are either non- being the first member at the newly-formed profit societies or conventional businesses. Canadian Auto Network (rebranded to Modo in North America Across North America, carsharing The Car Co-op earlier this year), Axelson average 35 to 1 organizations are seeing yearly double-digit took number two, and co-founder Kevin growth, according to a study by University McLaughlin became the third member. (top) Peg City Car Co-op, (bottom) Trevor Jansen NOVEMBER 2011 • ENTERPRISE 35 Creativity, technology, innovation and carsharing collide at The Tannery in Kitchener, Ontario Today, vehicles bearing the logos of I don’t think so.’ It was a very bizarre concept according to a 2010 San Jose University study. burgeoning carsharing companies and to people wherever we went,” Paz explains, Mark Goldblatt, co-op development officer for cooperatives dot the streets of Canadian adding that these issues are now in the past. the Cooperative Development Initiative, says urban centres, including Montreal, Toronto, In Modo’s Vancouver offices, the emails similar motivations propel the entrepreneurs Vancouver, and Winnipeg and smaller cities, come hard and fast: every 15 minutes, the behind co-ops, non-profits and for-profits. “I such as Sherbrooke, Hamilton, Kitchener- carsharing co-op receives a driving record would say everyone in this field, even if they’re Waterloo, Guelph, Nanaimo and, in the from ICBC, the province’s public car insurer. following a traditional for-profit model, started near future, a few Maritime towns. Another B.C. driver has begun the process of with strong environmental motivations.” Considering their popularity today, applying for membership. He or she must one might think a carsharing co-op would be in possession of a clean driving record The transport integration puzzle: have been easy to establish when, in fact, for at least three years to qualify. “Carsharing is the glue that holds the it was a hard sell. “It was resistance sustainable transportation network together. wherever we went,” says Tanya Paz, Motivations for If you don’t have carsharing then other options business development director at Modo carsharing like biking, public transit, and taxis are less The Car Co-op. “The BCAA [The B.C. effective as options,” says Matthew Piggott, Automobile Association] didn’t recognize The planet: No matter the demographic member services coordinator at Grand River memberships except to individuals. or region, the motivation to join a co-op or CarShare in Kitchener and Hamilton, Ontario. ICBC didn’t know what to do with it, carsharing organization is similar across the The presence of a carshare affects the livability as far as insurance goes. country. Concern for the environment is the of a community, and vice-versa, he insists. “When we tried to lease vehicles, most obvious: the fewer cars on the road, “The region is also investing heavily in everyone rejected us. They said, ‘Wait a the better. Each household that opts out of public transit and intercity buses, but without minute, I’m going to lease you this vehicle private vehicle ownership helps reduce carbon the carshare option, many won’t see public and then you’re going to sublet it to strangers? emissions by three quarters of a ton per year, transit as a viable option,” he says. Janet MacLeod, Grand River CarShare NOVEMBER 2011 • ENTERPRISE 37 to something that’s attractive to buyers.” In a nutshell, carsharing users are varied strains of a similar breed: they’re booking cars for monthly trips to the big-box furniture, hardware or wholesale food stores. They’re taking an elderly parent to lunch or doctors’ appointments, or they’re heading out of the city for a day-trip. “It’s fascinating to me how similar peoples’ lives are,” Paz says. These people are acutely aware of the value and workability of social space, esthetics, density, and are able to imagine a lifestyle that hasn’t been fashioned around the automobile. It’s fitting that architects are the most common Modo members, Paz says. “Their vision of a city is similar to mine, and it does not include a bunch of ugly parkades.” Shaheen points out in her research that roughly 1,400km per year, while the average Helping hands and nearly two dozen studies show carsharing driver in the B.C. Lower Mainland region partnerships serves as a “missing link” in the urban clocks between 6,000 and 24,000km. movement, “reducing dependence on private Pricing arrangements for using shared Earlier this year, 11 carsharing organizations vehicle ownership, lowering vehicle emissions vehicles ranges from per minute, or per hour, formed the Federation of Canadian Carsharing and energy consumption, and encouraging flat rates to a combination of lower hourly rates Cooperatives, which was incorporated under active lifestyles by interfacing with bicycle combined with distance charges for kilometres federal cooperative legislation in August. and pedestrian modes.” logged. In terms of the actual mechanics of Companies are bound by common ethics in Modo’s own membership perks reflect sharing, most organizations station their business practices and an agreement to Shaheen’s findings that carsharing can serve vehicles in designated locations throughout the share education and knowledge as a piece within a sustainable urban lifestyle. city. In the case of Modo, members go online to In Winnipeg, the Peg City Car Co-op, whose Modo members are eligible for discounts on reserve cars that are physically nearby. They use slogan is “Bike. Walk. Bus. And sometimes, YMCA/YWCA memberships, admission to city personalized fobs to open the vehicle, which has drive,” launched its co-op in June, with a grant recreational facilities, and extended health and the key inside. The driver records the mileage at from the CCA, support from Modo The Car dental coverage. Members can also receive a the start and finish of the trip (the car must be Co-op, and funding from Assiniboine Credit 15 percent discount on yearly transit passes picked-up and returned to the same location). Union to purchase the first three cars for its and can “roam” (carshare in another city 58 members (as of mid-September). with a partner organization). The urban lifestyle: Early in its evolution, In Kitchener-Waterloo, when 10 friends the carsharing concept fit into ideas of urban launched Grand River CarShare in 1988, they The cash: Equally motivating is the density. In the late ’90s, a condo-construction counted on the help of The Cooperators for economic impetus to forgo vehicle ownership boom hit a handful of Canadian cities, sparking insurance and Grand River Credit Union altogether. In Quebec and Montreal, 26 percent a new appreciation for living close to one’s (now Your Neighbourhood Credit Union) for of Communauto’s 25,000 users have given up workplace. A shared vehicle on-demand for start-up loans. Today, having since expanded a car, and 58 percent have put off buying one weekend chores or getaways made perfect sense. to Hamilton, the operation has more than 400 since they joined, according to the company. And so went the next shift: from the members who share 16 vehicles, and it’s In Vancouver, roughly half of Modo members environmentally conscious activist to a new eyeing another 60 future locations for cars.

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