Well, it seems the blog is already working. Melissa Haeffner of the I-GO car-sharing program googled C3, found the blog, and we’ve had quite a conversation by email. She answered a lot of my questions about how the program works, what it costs, and how the “community” of I-GO car-sharers is all about — sharing. She’s been more than generous with her time. Here’s some of what I’ve learned:
I-GO currently has 64 cars garaged in public locations in 20 different Chicago neighborhoods and almost 2500 members sharing those cars. They estimate that every I-GO shared car takes 20 cars off the road. I-GO is one of several car-share programs running in cities across the US, building on models that first started in Europe. I-GO Chicago must be doing something right because they grew from 250 to 2500 members last year!
The way it works is that I-GO puts a car in a location and adds it to their online and on-phone scheduling system. Members reserve cars for whatever time they need and then use their I-GO smartcard to get into the car. Once in the car, they can access the ignition key and a gas card. The hourly plus mileage fees cover all expenses, including insurance and gas, but members are responsible for actually filling the tank, whenever it goes below 1/4 tank.
Melissa and I talked a lot about the costs, especially compared to public transportation and car rental options. While any one person’s use, costs and calculations can be very unique and complex, in general, I’m convinced that this is a very affordable way to have access to a car (and an environmentally active community). She points out that I-GO is not competing with these other transportation options, but working with them. I-GO raises awareness, offers convenient and flexible options, encourages public transport use, and even works with Enterprise Rent-A-Car to get members discounts on rentals.
All of this as prelude for those of you checking out the blog for the first time, this Friday, before we hear more from Melissa in tomorrow’s class meeting. It turns out she’s coming in as part of the Air and Energy presentations.
I-GO is project of a C3 partner organization, the Center for Neighborhood Technology.
Thanks, Michael for the write up and thank you to all of the students for allowing me to tell you a bit about what CNT and I-GO do. I also wanted to say that last night I saw “An Inconvenient Truth” and I thought it would be very interesting to hear what students have to say about it. From the movie reviews (Time Magazine, Metromix, etc.), it looks like some of the media is trying to discredit it as an Al Gore campaign for 2008 (which it may or may not be) but the movie-going audience seems to enjoy it. Anyway, it might be a good Leader Project to follow up with audiences as they are leaving the theaters with some information/materials about long-term and short-term ways they can start reducing their carbon emissions. The main criticism I’ve heard is that it kind of leaves people hanging. Take care and good luck with your projects, Melissa Haeffner
[...] Nice to write about something solid, for which we already have solid language. This post about the I-Go Car Sharing program helped me remember that I really do know how to write! A welcome break from all this fuzzy fishing about for the language of Inviting Leadership. It’s fun to use words that are already commonly defined and understood, for a change! [...]
What’s with the copyright Michael Herman on this puppy? Haven’t you gotten with the Creative Commons program yet? I’m surprised. Anyway, this comment isn’t about that. It’s about I-Go.
About 4 years ago (5?), I owned a car. I tried not to drive it much. I wanted to bike more. I found I-Go. At the time the closest car was 10 blocks from my house, further than they recommended for their members. I signed up anyway. I got rid of my car and have used the I-Go car about 3 times in all these years. I now ride my bike and take transit most-everywhere. I-Go gave me the confidence to let go of the car when I wasn’t sure I’d be able to let go of the car.
So for some people I’m sure it’s a way to still have access to a car while not having to pay the fixed costs every year, thus reducing car use b/c the per-use fees take into account those fixed costs, making it feel more expensive to use each time than it does to use a private car each time. Good stuff.
And for other people, memebership just give security and isn’t ever even needed.
about that copyright… it was a minor detail i overlooked in the process of doing major theme revisions in the initial installing and setup. the copyright language was part of original code, generated automatically. i’ve added the cc license, but not yet sure if the whole thing should just be public domain. probably that’s where we end up. for now it’s Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. thanks for the reminder.
Dear Ted:
Can we quote you on that? We hope people will follow in your footsteps! (bikesteps?)
Email me if we can use your full name: mhaeffneratigocarsdotorg.
Thanks! Glad we could help!
melissa
Didn’t mean to yank your copyright chain, Michael.
Yes, Melissa. You can quote me and use my name and link to my blog.