Private Sector Approaches

As an advocacy organization, ECOS naturally is especially concerned with public policy issues that affect transportation and natural resources. But it's worth noting that there are private sector enterprises that see opportunity in providing people with alternatives to the individually owned automobile as a way of getting around. Here are two examples.

Notwithstanding the French love of the Tour de France and the hackneyed image of the baguette-bearing cycliste, France's capital city isn't famous for being bicycle friendly. (Maybe that's a consequence of the populace having smoked a few too many Gauloises.) Nevertheless, a recent venture is attempting to convince Parisians to take advantage of the city's 230-mile network of bike lanes. Velib ("Velo liberte") is a city sponsored project financed by the advertising giant JC Decaux (better known to Californians as the developers of San Francisco's pay toilets/advertising kiosks). Velib has established a citywide network of 750 bicycle stations where residents and tourists can rent one of 10,648 three-speed bicycles. Other European cities have attempted to provide free bicycles for the temporary use of anyone moving around the urban area, but people tend to undervalue (and therefore abuse) goods and services provided for free. The Velib strategy is to charge a small daily or monthly fee for bicycle use. Also, the bikes are equipped with alarms that go off if they're not returned on time. Other cities, even some in the United States, are watching closely to see if the project works.

In most places in the U.S., using an automobile to get around is at least an occasional necessity. But in urban areas, not everyone needs a car all the time. Many people wind up dumping lots of money and resources (purchase price, maintenance, insurance, parking) into cars that they don't need to use every day. For these people, car ownership is inefficient and needlessly expensive. What's more, once you own a car, you find reasons to use it.

One solution is car sharing. Car sharing is basically a form of car rental-- a service that makes cars quickly and cheaply available for rental by the hour. By making it easier for people to acquire a shared vehicle, car sharing services make it possible for people to forego individual car ownership, even if they need an automobile on a regular basis. Reducing the number of cars in circulation has direct impacts on parking demand and land use in densely populated areas. And by reducing the availability of vehicles, it can also reduce congestion by encouraging people to use alternative means (transit, bicycles, walking) to get around. For-profit car share enterprises exist in the East Bay and San Francisco, among other places.