[sustran] Re: Carsharing for third world cities? Your reactions invited

[Jack Mallinckrodt]

Lee's thoughts, particularly his #2, seem to me to well define the issue.

Seems to me to depend on which is your more fundamental goal:

1. To get cars off the road  (the goal clearly implied by each of Lee's 
questions), or
2. To provide the infrastructure to enable a richer spectrum of individual 
choices and opportunity.

Those two are, in my view,  in almost direct opposition.  For the vast 
majority of people, much as we might wish otherwise,  there is no viable 
alternative to the personal automobile for maximizing mobility and choice.

Jack
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At 11:11 PM 4/14/04, Eric Britton / Lee Schipper wrote

>    * "Funny I have thought a lot about car sharing but I am worried it 
> moves people too fast into cars by giving them a cheaper buy-in."  (And 
> then when I answered that I had to do some serious cogitating on this, he 
> quickly responded . . . )
>    * "Well, if you go into rich countries and woo people who normally 
> would have almost instinctively owned cars, yes, there must be a results. 
> I suspect that Zip and the others in the yuppie parts of Washington DC do 
> that. But car sharing where there are no cars yet can serve as car 
> boosters, likewise among  groups (like students in  Europe) who don't yet 
> have cars. My fear is that by creating a mobile class even if they don't 
> OWN cars they can move into a car-friendly long-distances/low density 
> world earlier than otherwise
>    * "Also drivers licensees are expensive. By making the car cheap on a 
> part time bases the user has to make the investment in a licenses. After 
> that, who wants to only drive a few hours a week? Anyway some thoughts!"


Jack
www.urbantransport.org 
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