Community Car, Madison's car-sharing service, has some competition
John McNamara used to curse a blue streak when the city snowplow truck would leave a big pile at the foot of his east side driveway.
But this winter, McNamara is having the last laugh.
In December, McNamara dumped his 1992 Toyota Corolla and signed up for Community Car, the local service that rents wheels by the hour to members.
"I've dug out of my driveway for the last time," said McNamara, 44, accounts manager at Union Cab, who is married with a daughter at East High School.
The McNamara family, which is now totally "car free," used Community Car eight times in December for everything from grocery shopping to picking up a Christmas tree. For other trips around town, they walk, take the bus or use cabs.
"It does make you think a lot more about planning your transportation," said McNamara, who boasts he's lost 15 pounds since Thanksgiving in part because of his 25-minute walk from his home in the Marquette neighborhood to the Union Cab offices near Oscar Mayer.
McNamara is one of more than 1,000 members of Community Car. In five years, the local car-sharing service has grown from three vehicles and 25 members to a fleet of 17 vehicles including a van and pickup truck.
New technology allows members to reserve cars online just an hour in advance. A computer-coded key fob provides access to the vehicles, which are parked in various locations between the Hilldale shopping center on the west side and the Atwood neighborhood on the east side.
The service here is proving so successful, in fact, that national competitors are now hungrily eyeing the Madison market. U Car Share, a subsidiary of U-Haul, quietly rolled out its own car share service here last year and now has six vehicles available for use on the UW-Madison campus. It counts about 50 members locally.
"We haven't been pushing it too hard yet but we certainly like Madison," said U Car Share spokeswoman Cassandra Allen.
U Car Share has been testing markets in Berkeley, Calif.; College Station, Texas; Portland, Ore.; and Portland, Maine. National rental companies Hertz and Enterprise are also getting into the game, joining Zipcar, the largest car sharing service in the U.S. with over 225,000 members.
Community Car founder and President Sonya Newenhouse says she welcomes the competition -- even if U Car Share is offering to waive its $50 membership fee for current Community Car members who switch services.
"The competition does keep you on your toes," said Newenhouse. "But we see anything that builds the culture of car sharing as a good thing."
Car sharing has been around in Europe for more than 20 years. Members generally pay an annual fee, reserve a ride online, walk to a car parked near their home or office and then use it for a few hours to grocery shop, go on a date or haul mulch from the garden store.
That Madison is considered a prime market for car sharing should come as no surprise. Liberal communities with thousands of environmentally minded consumers would seem a natural fit. The sales staff at the Greater Madison Visitors and Convention Bureau, for example, use Community Car vehicles to give tours of the city to convention planners.
But the cost of owning and maintaining a vehicle is also figuring more heavily into the equation. When gas hit $4 a gallon last summer, memberships in car sharing services soared nationwide.
McNamara estimates he was spending about $2,400 annually on insurance, maintenance and gasoline even though his car was already paid off.
Community car charges $8 an hour to use a vehicle, which includes gas and insurance. The rate drops to $3 an hour from midnight to 7 a.m. for night owls.
Even mixing in the costs of a bus pass and taxi rides -- as a Union Cab employee he gets discounts on both -- McNamara says there is no doubt his family is coming out ahead financially.
"It's been a good experience so far," he said.
Judy Skog is one of Community Car's earliest members. An "empty nester," Skog lives with her husband, Ken, near Odana Hills Golf Course. The couple still maintains one vehicle but found car sharing has allowed them to get ride of the second car.
"I really don't use it that much, maybe one or twice every six months, but it's really gotten me into the mind-set of not driving so much," she said.
The couple did take a road trip this summer to the Wollersheim Winery in a Community Car Toyota Prius.
Skog's only complaint is not having a car available at the new Sequoya Commons development at Midvale and Tokay boulevards, just a short walk from their home.
"It's not for lack of me lobbying the (Community Car) office but they say they don't have enough business there yet to support it," she says.
And the bottom line is that Community Car is a business.
Newenhouse, who also founded the Madison Environmental Group consulting firm, declined to release financial details but says the car sharing venture has been profitable for three years with revenues under $1 million annually.
Community Car is also looking at expanding around the state. It has held several meetings in La Crosse with plans to start operating there late in 2009.
On a national scale, Zipcar has been experiencing runaway growth, taking on some 10,000 new members a month. Founded eight years ago, Zipcar initially operated in Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., but now operates in 50 cities, not not yet in Madison. After years of losing money, annual revenues are expected to top $100 million this year.
"Zipcar has been on a very aggressive growth pattern," Newenhouse noted.
Which is OK with Newenhouse, who "divorced" her own car in 2001.
"I feel like we're in the business of getting people to drive less -- not necessarily just the car sharing business," she says.
Mike DeVries/The Capital Times
Without a car of their own, John McNamara (shown) and his family now get around by bus or cab or on foot. When they need a car, they reserve one from Community Car, Madison's first car-sharing service.
