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Municipal officials joined the chorus. • BMW-owned ReachNow, a wide- second kids hit school age,” says
Last month New York City banned ranging experiment in ride hailing Robin Chase, a former Zipcar
cars from busy 14th Street, in favour and car rental, folded in the US this executive who’s now an independent
of bus-only lanes. San Francisco’s summer. consultant. "That’s when not owning
Municipal Transportation Agency • The scooter-share folks at Lime a car, even in a dense American city,
voted to transform Market Street, its last month killed their experimental becomes the biggest pain."
main downtown artery, into a place LimePod car-share service in
for bikes and scooters and buses— Seattle. Car sharing, meanwhile, has proved
and definitely not personal cars. to be a difficult place to make money,
Similarly, some real estate developers • General Motors wound down its especially in cities that aren’t dense
tout apartments without parking Maven car-sharing service in eight enough to ensure that riders will
spaces but with built-in Uber pick-up of its 17 North American cities this quickly and easily be able to find their
spots and leases with monthly ride- summer. next ride.
hail credits.
• Uber and Lyft, now public “Car sharing is so capital-intensive,”
Cities and companies say such companies, are losing gobs of says Steve Banfield, who stepped
moves can help take emissions- money, and the services’ most down as head of BMW’s ReachNow
spewing cars off the street, make popular times are Friday evenings, initiative earlier this year. “Clearly, it’s a
it easier to get around by foot or which seems to indicate less that tough business.”
by bike, and unburden riders (if not people are ditching their personal To be sure, a new breed of mobility
the drivers) from the drudgeries cars than ditching their personal companies has seen some
of car maintenance. And Census cars while drinking. (Still a worthy success. Research using Car2Go
data suggests that the number of goal!) data published in 2016 by UC
households without cars, and those Researchers suggest a number of Berkeley researcher Susan Shaheen
with fewer cars than workers, has reasons for the gap between hype suggested members of the car-share
grown. and reality. program were able, in some cases, to
But here’s the funny thing: It is no mistake, perhaps, that the avoid buying new cars because of the
Personal car ownership in the peak of “no more personal cars” Car2Go vehicles.
USA has actually increased in the occurred in the years following the
past 10 years, even in the frenzied recession, when car ownership Banfield says ReachNow’s experience
urban places where Uber and car- still felt for many like a luxury, and echoed that work: The service saw
share have become verbs. success, particularly among people
profligate spending on gas (petrol) in their thirties whose household
According to research from former felt even more so. Since the recovery, owned only one car. Americans aren’t
New York City transportation the US has seen some of its best ditching the personal car, but maybe
official Bruce Schaller, the number annual car sales numbers. Gas they’re ditching the second personal
of vehicles has grown faster than (petrol) prices, meanwhile, have car.
the population in some of the cities generally fallen, making it cheaper to
where ride-hail is most popular: swan about town on four wheels. Last month, Mr Bruce Schaller, a
Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Millennials, the city-loving generation former New York official, walked
Philadelphia, and Chicago. down Manhattan’s 14th Street, where
that was supposed to break the honking horns have been relegated to
Moreover, some services targeted to wheel of car ownership, are growing the background, and buses reportedly
the aspirationally or actually car-free up, and recent research has have to pause at stops to avoid
have hit the skids. suggested that their recession-related getting ahead of schedule—that’s
decisions to delay starting families how quickly traffic is moving without
• Car2Go, the car-sharing company may have contributed more to their personal cars.
now jointly owned by Daimler lower rates of car ownership than an
and BMW, said last month that it aversion to the personal automobile. “This change on 14th Street made
would pull out of half of the North it more of a hassle to get here by
American cities and only remain “We can’t tell if millennials aren’t Uber than by bus,” he said. “That’s
in New York, Montreal, Seattle, owning cars until they start having what we want to see.”
Vancouver, and Washington.) children, and especially until their
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