By Jasmine Solomonescu
An Ottawa car-sharing service may soon have a vehicle in Centretown but the last thing it wants its members to do is drive.
Vrtucar, Canada’s 11th car-sharing organization, provides members with 24-hour access to shiny silver Toyotas, but the cars aren’t meant for everyday use. They are a last-resort means of transportation when walking, cycling, busing or car-pooling aren’t feasible, says Vrtucar general manager Wilson Wood.
Since its inception in May, Vrtucar has attracted 29 members who share two cars. Both are four-door, automatic Toyota Echoes, which members access with keys from nearby lock boxes. One is parked at Bank Street and Chamberlain Avenue; the other at Bank Street and Sunnyside Avenue.
Wood says the company plans to buy a third car once it has at least eight members from a given neighbourhood. With six members living along Bronson Avenue, Centretown is the most likely candidate. Sandy Hill – home to four members – is also a possibility.
“We know we’re going to get cars there, it’s just a question of when,” says Wood, referring to the Bronson and Sandy Hill locations.
Centretown resident Ken Buckingham, who joined Vrtucar in July, says a Bronson car would be more convenient. He now bikes to the one at Bank at Chamberlain.
He says he enjoys having access to a car for trips to the Corel Centre or Home Depot without the burden of owning one.
“My car used to sit in the backyard depreciating and getting bird droppings.”
Like most Vrtucar members, Jocelyne Audette drives less than 10,000 kilometres a year. She joined Vrtucar in June after leasing a car for two years and rarely using it. Car sharing is better suited to her sporadic driving needs, she says.
Vrtucar members pay an annual fee of $100, $200 or $300 according to how much they drive, plus fees by the hour and kilometre for individual trips, and a $500 refundable deposit. Gas, maintenance and insurance costs are all included.
Such hassle-free driving may just be the transportation model of the future.
In his book The City After the Automobile, Canadian architect Moshe Safdie proposes the replacement of privately owned vehicles with “utility cars” that would be “at our disposal by the hour, day, week, or month.”
“With our congested highways and steadily decreasing mobility, vehicles that are progressively destroying the environment, . . . it is time that we completely rethink each component of our urban transportation network,” he writes.
Wood says Vrtucar is a step in that direction.
He figures about half of Vrtucar’s members would buy cars of their own were it not for the chance to share. That means the company is keeping about seven cars off the streets for each one it purchases, he says.
In a country where, according to the Environment Canada Web site, 15 million privately owned vehicles each pump out about four tonnes of air pollutants a year, fewer cars means quieter, healthier communities.
But car sharing isn’t the only response to our dependency on automobiles, says Laurent Mougeot, director of Greenpeace Ottawa.
“(Car sharing) is positive if it discourages people from buying cars, but if it takes away from public transportation it’s not a good thing because that’s the best alternative to cars.”
Wood says he agrees with Mougeot and hopes increased use of public transit and other means of transportation, in conjunction with car sharing, will eventually make private ownership the road less travelled.