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ChineseA Not So Fond Farewell
As of this past weekend I have bid adieu to my less than useful, often pointless, Zipcar membership. It was a tough decision because I wanted very much to stick with the idea that even through the terrible mishandling of their Flexcar takeover and the awfully secretive and annoying six months that followed, it would all work out for the good in the end.
Even at the lowest point, the day all us Flexcar members found out that every car had disappeared from the system and that it sadly was not just a website glitch, I had faith. Even when I learned that Zipcar had actually taken all those cars we used so much, with convenience and delight, away, and were gone forever—moving only a sorry amount of them to a couple local campuses—I still had faith. But sometimes faith is shattered and there’s no way to believe again.
Since USC is one of those campuses I had hope I’d be able to use Zipcar, but since the cars were so drastically cut—where once there were 75 to choose from in biking/walking distance, there became approximately 5—I couldn’t ever get one booked when I needed it. So not only had the distance to get one increased ten times or more but the chances of getting one nearly disappeared.
Not to be beaten by the blows of a corporate take over or the market feasibility (or lack there of) of this personal-auto obsessed city, I stayed on. Then came the $55 charge on my credit card for a service I had, nor have any intention of using. And though to some it may seem miniscule it just sent me over the patience limit, for not only had the service been completely decimated and deemed almost of 0% usefulness to me, but the fees to use said service went up 40%. Now one might argue that if you want this service so badly you should continue to stick it out, but it’s hard to believe in a company who has convinced you endlessly that they don’t believe in you. So I drew the line, took out my shiny new Zipcard, and called the number on the back.
I still have faith that someday the Zipcar/Flexcar ideal will work in this city like it has in so many others. I still think that if Zipcar hadn’t obliterated all that Flexcar had been working so hard to (successfully) create I’d continue to be a proud member even with the extra fees and penalties. I still think if Zipcar would market and re-introduce all those cars they’ve hidden away in storage or moved to other cities, LA would catch on—that if Zipcar would just spend up front even at a loss, possibly like Flexcar did, this city and their company would all profit in the end. But until Zipcar is willing to truly make that effort I can no longer willfully support them. The romance it seems has ended.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
It is a shame that business machinations have killed a good idea. I am somewhat perplexed that you are willing to pay whatever it takes to make the system profitable.
Cars are still cheap. Car storage and operation are still reasonable. Was the Zip/Flex business model too inclusive? Not sufficiently inclusive? Unfairly impacted by massive transit subsidies? Some unknowable mix of all is my guess. I am fairly certain that if transit fares were anywhere near what costs would demand that you’d have a Zip/Flex system many times more useful at lower prices. There is a price to be paid for low transit pricing.
Flexcars are a nightmare for the auto industry, once people realize they don’t necessarily need personal ownership of a vehicle 24/7.
I would not be surprised if the ZipCar/FlexCar fiasco was engineered by the same linage of industry arseholes who zapped the Los Angeles Red Cars, pedicabs and the EV1. After all, petrol at $4.00+ a gallon is just not enough for the insatiable motorcar industry.
[...] like MetroRiderLA has a double dose of Zipcar fun for you today. First Tyke’s story about dumping his Zipcar membership, and now my story about Zipping around in multiple Zipcars this [...]
I would not be surprised if the ZipCar/FlexCar fiasco was engineered by the same linage of industry arseholes who zapped the Los Angeles Red Cars,
Nothing like a little NCL myth to kill a thread. NCL where it INVESTED in RAIL LINES was responsible for providing service in those places LONGER than where it was not involved. So there, it was a conspiracy and yes they were punished for trying to distort the market. What’s your beef? That they didn’t let rail die SOONER?
Rob, what is it with you? The subsidies given the auto industry are enormous. Public transit is a poor stepchild, crumbs thrown to a small section of the public. The public WANTS more transit, but we never get it, and naysayers like you always trot out the bogus “massive transit subsidies” line to provide the political poison that discriminates against transit. This is why you have been called a troll.
The Red Cars died due to a combination of declining ridership as a result of being caught in mixed traffic, and an arcane, legacy legal structure which required the railroad to maintain the adjacent roads, which became our first highways. As more people started using cars, it was the railroad that had to pay for the first roads, further causing them to cut service, and slowing the trains down. It also did not help that Huntington built most of his lines to promote his real estate developments, and not as a fully integrated transit system. The NCL issue was long after the fact.
Mr. Tard sees a larger conspiracy, in which any alternative to the car is squelched. Not sure I completely agree with that, but it has nothing to do with the NCL. The planners in most cities are, however, very pro-car, and anti-alternatives.
Personally I don’t care much. I walk to work, and take transit most of the time I need to go elsewhere. When gas hits $6 a gallon in 2 years and the pain spreads, the pitchforks and torches will be for you and your ilk.
i’m not buying the conspiracy theory angle. if zip car owned los angeles and the cars were absolutely everywhere, replacing private auto ownership wholesale, what would the auto industry or oil companies have to lose?
nothing. cars would still be everywhere and would still depend on gas, right?
i’ve got another conspiracy theory - maybe the company didn’t make any money, or the kind of money they thought they would. gasp!
Why the Red Cars died is a long and tortured story with blame and no-fault in plenty to go around. i was just commenting on the single aspect of the NCL era that people don’t seem to ant to get. NCL picked up rail lines and ran them at a time municipalities were abandoning them. The didn’t kill them, they kept them on life support.
I bring this up because learning from history is cheaper than repeating it.
If energy goes up another 50% in two years how will transit escape the effects? Fares are tied to operating costs unlike private transport which is more closely tied to total costs. Energy is an operating cost. Expensive energy would disproportionately impact transit users. Persistent high energy costs also affect the general economy and thus the municipal and state revenue streams responsible for the rest of the operating costs.
High energy costs will affect everyone equally. The price of cars and the operating costs of cars will go up. You’re not making a really good point there.
The interurbans were private enterprises that could not compete with the subsidized auto roadways. You could say they died of “market causes”, but it wasn’t a true free market. Not even close. The Arroyo Seco Parkway never had to consider the idea of “profit”. It was not funded by private investment or fares (tolls, in roadway speak), but by the federal government, namely New Deal programs like the Works Progress Administration, Public Works Administration, and the Public Roads Administration. This is what always blows me away when I hear libertarian minded people defended car culture. Car culture flourished because of the FREAKIN’ NEW DEAL!! Yeah, that New Deal, the one that began the federal welfare state.
It’s very simple, before the government got intimately involved in transportation, it was a private industry. After the government decided to make the automobile the de-facto (read, national) form on transportation, transportation forever ceased to be a private (read, based on traditional American values) industry. Car culture has always been subsidized, and the subsidized car-culture created the subsidized mass transit culture. And now we can’t move unless the government tells us we can and steals our money for it.