Should you share a car?

By Liz Pulliam Weston

Marc Bovee is committed to not using his car -- and that's quite a commitment in wheels-crazy Los Angeles.

Bovee's Jeep Wrangler has been garaged since August 2005, in part because he uses a vehicle-sharing service called Flexcar.

Whenever the bus or subway won't get him where he needs to go, Bovee, 43, visits the Flexcar Web site to find and reserve cars, which are parked in designated lots and garages around L.A. Once he arrives at his chosen vehicle -- often a hybrid, although sometimes just a fuel-efficient Honda Civic -- Bovee opens the door by placing his membership card over a reader installed on the windshield. He gets the keys from the glove compartment and drives off, returning the car when he's done buying groceries, running errands or taking a weekend trip.

He doesn't face the lines or paperwork of a car rental counter. And all the costs of operating the car -- gas, insurance, registration, maintenance, carwashes, you name it -- are included in the $10 hourly fee he pays in addition to a $40 annual fee. Special promotions and daily maximum fees help make longer trips affordable.

Flexcar, which is based in Seattle, says its average member spends $80 a month on the service, a far cry from the typical $863 monthly cost of maintaining a midsize car in Los Angeles.

Average car ownership costs by city

Location	Annual cost*	Monthly cost
Detroit	$11,844	$987
Philadelphia	$10,672	$889
Los Angeles	$10,361	$863
Boston	$9,660	$805
Miami	$9,216	$768
Baltimore	$9,125	$760
Denver	$8,949	$746
Houston	$8,467	$706
Topeka, Kan.	$8,078	$673
Grand Forks, N.D.	$7,423	$619
Sioux Falls, S.D.	$7,401	$617
Knoxville, Tenn.	$7,399	$617
National average	$7,967	$664

*The figures reflect the annual costs, including fuel, routine maintenance, tires, insurance, license and registration fees, finance charges and depreciation costs for a 2006 midsize sedan driven 15,000 miles a year for four years.

Source: Runzheimer International, American Automobile Association

Where it works, and why

For his part, Bovee says the arrangement is easier on his wallet and his conscience.

"I made a commitment to reducing my dependence on foreign oil," says Bovee, a film sales coordinator who used to drive his Jeep an average 12,000 miles a year. "To me, it makes so much sense. ... Why have a car any longer than you need to?"

It's that kind of sensibility, along with rising oil prices and increased media attention, that has sent car-sharing on a roll. Car-sharing advocates say the services can be a smart choice for a variety of drivers, including:

• Urbanites who don't want the hassle or expense of owning a car.

• Families and couples who want to avoid the costs of a second or third car.

• College campuses hoping to reduce congestion and parking hassles.

• Corporations that want to replace fleet vehicles with a more cost-effective solution.

For the most part, car-sharing ventures take one of three forms:

• For-profit ventures like Flexcar, Zipcar and Communauto, which operate largely in big cities and on a few college campuses.

• Nonprofits like Chicago's I-Go, City CarShare in San Francisco and PhillyCarShare in Philadelphia.

• Grass-roots cooperatives, which can be tiny (like the three cars shared by 15 members of the Dancing Rabbit ecovillage in Rutledge, Mo.) or extensive (like Vancouver, B.C.'s Co-operative Auto Network, with a dozen locations in and around the city).

More than two dozen such agencies now offer shared-vehicle services in the United States and Canada, according to car-sharing expert Susan Shaheen, with more in the works. The number of users rose 46% in 2005 to more than 100,000, says Shaheen, research leader for the California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways Program, and had climbed to about 118,000 as of June.

Every month, enrollments at Zipcar have doubled compared to the previous year, says CEO Scott Griffith. As of August, Zipcar claimed 65,000 active members nationwide. In some neighborhoods in New York and Boston, Griffith says, one out of 10 adults over 21 is a Zipcar member.

"I'm the guy who four years ago was running around with a PowerPoint presentation, saying this is going to be 1 million people someday, and people laughed at me," says Griffith, whose company is based in Boston. "They might still be laughing, but at least they're not doing it in the same room."

Most car-sharing services stress their convenience and low costs, but advocates see car sharing as a partial antidote to a host of urban ills, especially congestion and pollution. Every shared vehicle replaces at least five and as many as 15 private vehicles, according to a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences.

The difference between sharing and renting

Car sharing seems to work best, at least as a commercial venture, in congested areas with good public transit, says John Williams, a Flexcar spokesman. The typical user is one who walks, bikes or uses transit for most purposes, but occasionally needs wheels for errands or short trips.

That certainly describes Denise Klein, 63, who lives and works in downtown Seattle. Klein has a personal Flexcar account for errands, shopping or visiting her granddaughters, as well as a corporate account for business trips related to her job as executive director of a nonprofit.

"There are six different cars I use regularly and another 10 I've used occasionally that I can walk to very easily," Klein says. "I've never not been able to get a car when I needed one."

Klein said she did once wait 30 minutes, by choice, when another member was late in returning a vehicle she wanted.

"When [the driver] pulled up, she had a baby in a car seat and the car was full of stuff that she'd bought," Klein says. "I offered to drive her back to her apartment and helped her carry her stuff up."

Car-sharing services like to promote that kind of community sense, which is actually a necessity for the sharing to run smoothly. Members are typically responsible for leaving the cars clean for the next user, and many services provide gas cards so drivers can refill tanks that get low.

Giving up the keys

Klein hasn't always been car-free. For the first four years or so of her Flexcar membership, Klein and her husband owned a car that he primarily drove. With a salary in the low six figures, Klein easily could have afforded a second car, but says, "I didn't want to be encumbered with something I didn't need."

Finally, more than a year ago, Klein convinced her husband to get rid of his car. The couple was paying more than $100 a month just to park the vehicle, plus another $80 to insure it.

"I said, 'We're paying all this money for it and we're not using it that frequently,'" Klein says. "Psychologically, it was harder for him, but he did it."

Bovee in Los Angeles said he's almost ready to take the same step. He wishes there were some Flexcar locations closer to his home in West Hollywood, but says his year without his car has proven that even in L.A., he can do without it.

"I think I'll put it on Craigslist soon," he said. "'Jeep needs a new home.'"

41 cities where you can share a car

City	Car-sharing organization	City	Car-sharing organization
Ann Arbor, Mich.	Ann Arbor Community Car Coop	Minneapolis	Zipcar
Aspen, Colo.	Roaring Fork Valley Vehicles	Montreal	Communauto
Atlanta	Flexcar	New York City	Zipcar
Austin, Texas	Austin CarShare	Ottawa	Vrtucar
Boston	Zipcar	Philadelphia	PhillyCarShare
Boulder, Colo.	Boulder CarShare	Portland	Flexcar
Calgary	Calgary Alternative Trans. Co-operative	Quebec	Communauto
Chapel Hill, N.C.	Zipcar	Rutledge, Mo.	Dancing Rabbit Vehicle Cooperative
Chicago	I-go	San Diego	Flexcar
Chicago	Zipcar	San Francisco	CityCarshare
Cleveland	Citywheels	San Francisco	Flexcar
Detroit	Motor City CarShare	San Francisco	Zipcar
Edmonton	Edmonton Carshare Co-op	Seattle	Flexcar
Eugene, Ore.	Eugene BioCarShare	Sherbrooke, Ontario	Communauto
Gatineau, Quebec	Communauto	Toronto	AutoShare
Kitchener, Ontario	People's Car Co-op	Toronto	Zipcar
Kitsap, Wash.	Scoot	Vancouver, B.C.	Co-operative Auto Network
Los Angeles	Flexcar	Victoria, B.C.	Victoria Car Share Co-op
Madison, Wis.	Community Car	Washington, DC	Flexcar
Minneapolis	HourCar	Washington, DC	Zipcar

Liz Pulliam Weston's column appears every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions in the Your Money message board.