UCarShare is growing and Portland's parking reforms are working

It's hard to believe, but UhaulCarShare has been operating in Portland for over six years now.

They started with four cars parked near Monument Square and the ferry terminal. Here's a screenshot of their website in 2009:

As of this fall, they've doubled the local fleet to 8 cars and expanded into South Portland with a car parked at the Southern Maine Community College campus. Here's their new coverage map:

A lot of UhaulCarShare's success here comes from a helpful new reform of parking rules in the city's zoning requirements. For the last few years now, city planners have allowed a reduction in developers' expensive parking-construction mandates if the developers agree to sponsor a carsharing vehicle on-site.

Several new apartment buildings have taken advantage of this incentive, most recently Avesta Housing's 409 Cumberland Avenue apartment block, which built only 18 basement parking spaces for its 57 new apartment units and sponsored a new UhaulCarShare vehicle to be parked on-site. This arrangement benefits everyone: reduced construction costs for the developers, reduced housing costs and more mobility options for residents, and a more convenient carsharing network for neighbors.

Updated: Carsharing has officially come to Portland

Earlier this week, U Haul delivered Portland's first-ever shared cars to dedicated parking spots on Commercial and Elm Streets (next to the ferry terminal and Monument Square, respectively). As of this morning, U Car Share's online reservation system is active, and at least one Portlander (I think that Alex Landry got the first ride) has taken the new cars for a spin.

Portlanders can now sign up at www.ucarshare.com. Membership starts at $50 - about the cost of one oil change and tune up - and all gasoline, maintenance, and insurance costs are included in the hourly charge. Portland Greenstreets participants should check their latest newsletter for a limited-time free membership offer.

Here's a screenshot of U Car Share's newly-active reservations webpage:



Once you've made a reservation online, you can use your membership card to unlock the vehicle at the designated time and retrieve the keys to the ignition, which are stored inside.

Pictured at right are the two U Cars parked in their designated spots at Monument Square, across the street from the central METRO bus stop.

I can't say I'm very thrilled at U Car's choice of vehicle - a Chrysler PT Cruiser hatchback. If you could compare the American auto industry to a festering, cancerous colon (which shouldn't require too much imagination), then the PT Cruiser may earn a footnote in history as one of its pathetic, terminal turds.

It's also unfortunate that they also have Massachusetts license plates, which will make them even more embarrassing to drive them around here.

Still, I suppose that they're fairly utilitarian, with plenty of cargo space in spite of their small size. Maybe you can't save thousands of dollars in transportation costs in style, but the U Cars will get you around, without the time- and money-consuming hassles of car ownership. Being mistaken for a Masshole is a small price to pay in comparison.

Carsharing (at last) is coming to Portland

Last night at City Hall, Councilors voted to dedicate four prime parking spots (two near Monument Square and two more near Casco Bay Lines ferry terminal) to U-Car Share, a relatively new subsidiary of U-Haul. In about a month, U-Car Share will deliver four PT Cruisers to Portland to launch our first carsharing service. John Richardson has the whole story in today's Press Herald.

After years of trying to attract Zipcar, I'm very glad we're getting U-Car instead. This young and growing carsharing company will be able to devote more attention and resources to Portland as one of its base markets - and having the resources of an established company like U-Haul behind it will also help tremendously. Hopefully we'll see relatively rapid growth, with new shared U-Cars coming to Munjoy Hill, USM, and the West End. I'll update the blog again as soon as U-Car launches its new reservations and membership web site for Portland.

U-Car Share's Web Site (includes a "frequently asked questions" page with details on how carsharing works): www.ucarshare.com

The Easternmost Zipcar in the USA

I was up in Penobscot County last week and snapped this photo of the University of Maine's shared car at the Orono campus:



The Zipcar is parked in a convenient spot at the close-in end of UMO's gigantic parking lot, which can be seen in the background here. You might also notice the big dent in the side. I'd chalked this up to lousy student driving, but my friend Margaret, a current UMO grad student, informed me that it was actually the result of a white-tailed deer running into the side of the car. So deer are stupider than college motorists. I stand corrected.

Speaking of shared cars, Matti Guerney, an employee of the Greater Portland Council of Governments, will be hosting two meetings in Portland at the end of this month to advance the idea of creating a carsharing business here in Maine's largest city. Here are the dates:

• 5/29, 6 PM: Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization (aka "Hill House"), 92 Congress St.
• 5/31, 10 AM: Reiche School, 166 Brackett St.

Contact Matti at carshareme@gmail.com to learn more.

Want Zipcar?

Last night, Portland's League of Young Voters kicked off a campaign to get more involved in local issues in the city of Portland, with a focus on housing and transportation policies.

For both issues, League members zeroed in on our parking policies: Liz Trice brought up the point that the average parking space, which includes space to back out and maneuver around the lot, is about the size of a studio apartment. So current zoning, which requires two parking spaces per unit of housing, will effectively triple the price of an apartment. And naturally, these Stakhanovite parking production quotas incentivize car ownership and traffic congestion throughout the city and the region as a whole, in addition to making new housing construction for the middle class uneconomical.

One immediate solution could be a carsharing service like Zipcar. Shared cars allow anyone in the neighborhood who's paid an annual membership fee to reserve vehicles at an hourly rate: gas, maintenance, and insurance are all included. For most city-dwellers, carsharing is much more economical than owning a big-ticket depreciating asset like an automobile outright.

Presumably, if enough Portlanders enter their contact info on Zipcar's "notify me when carsharing comes to town" web page, they'll take notice and bring us some rides.

But Matti Gurney, who works for the Greater Portland Council of Governments, is keeping his own list to make a more formal petition to the nation's largest carsharing company. If you'd like it to be easier to live without a car in this town, send him an e-mail that says "Please add me to your carshare list. I live in Portland." Alec at the League would also like to be copied on your messages, so that he can keep track of our progress: alec@indyvoter.org.