Check out Community Car Share

"If you live in a city, you don't need to own a car."

They are bold words, especially coming from William Clay Ford Jr CEO of Ford Motor Company and great-grandson of the legendary Henry as quoted in an interview with the British newspaper The Observer in November, 2000.

Bold, certainly but bang on. Ford and like-minded people envision a world where individual car ownership is replaced by environmentally friendly alternatives resulting in a community less reliant on the one-car-per-person system which causes so many problems today.

Ford's world is not so improbable. The answer may lie in car sharing, a program first developed in Switzerland in 1987. The concept is simple. After registering, members gain access to a car or fleet of cars as part of a sort of time-share with other members. Members can book the car as often as they need, and they pay a monthly bill, generally, for a fee based on the car-time they've used and the miles they've driven.

Visits to the gas station are generally reimbursed, and then factored into the mileage.

Car sharing is an excellent option for infrequent car users and the result is a drop in single-owner cars, the mast majority of which go underused and are likely not needed. The average car in North America, for example, spends less than 70 minutes a day on the road.

Today, car share programs are available all over the world. CommunAuto, now operating in Montreal and other cities, became in Quebec City in 1993 North America's first car share organization. Companies like Flexcar [www.flexcar.com] and Zipcar [www.zipcar.com] now operate in many major American cities.

CarSharing.net offers a comprehensive database. Find the organization near you.

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