Posts about Car Sharing

Small business: As in many forums, most candidates gave few specifics, and in most cases didn't sharply disagree with one another. For example, I asked all candidates to talk about a time they'd helped a local business directly. I asked this first of Vincent Orange, who often touts his work bringing Home Depot to the Rhode Island Avenue Metro area but when talking about small business, speaks much more in generalities.

Orange and the other candidates launched into generic, prepared statements about the value of small business. Sekou Biddle's answer, that he helps them most of all by patronizing them, was the most responsive. Orange was, however, able to name a lot of local businesses once pressed.

Affordable housing: Peter Shapiro had thoughtful recommendations for how to promote housing affordability, drawing on his experience with Arts District Hyattsville when he served in Prince George's County. Perhaps because of his experience as an elected official in the past, Shapiro gave more specifics about actions he has taken or policies he would implement on this and some other issues.

All candidates raised their hands when asked if they would restore the Housing Production Trust Fund; hopefully Orange, in this budget cycle, and whoever wins the race, in the future, follows through on that promise.

Ethics: Shapiro went the furthest on campaign finance reform, criticizing the current council for not taking stronger steps and arguing it should pursue a public financing system for elections. Biddle called for reforms to money order contributions, the source of the latest scandal.

Orange, as he has in the past, emphasized his advocacy for banning outside employment for councilmembers, but hasn't agreed to support limits on corporate contributions. He defended his decision not to cosponsor Mary Cheh's recent campaign finance bill as "self-serving," since Cheh holds other jobs as a law professor at GW and teaching bar review courses. (Tommy Wells, the one co-sponsor, does not have any outside employment).

Transportation: During a section on transportation, it came out that of the candidates, only Sekou Biddle is a member of Capital Bikeshare, and only he and Peter Shapiro subscribe to Zipcar. Biddle even pulled out his CaBi key, on his keychain, and his Zipcar membership card right on the stage.

I asked candidates about how we could help cyclists and drivers better understand each other's needs and concerns. Without being "gotcha" about it, I wanted to give Vincent Orange a chance to speak to what he had learned from the January 1st episode where he parked in the 15th Street bike lane, was called out on Twitter, and apologized. Orange said that he hadn't realized on which side of the white stanchions he should park, and that now he does.

Biddle proposed having driver education include information on how to deal with bicycle infrastructure and people riding bikes. This would only be a small start, since many DC drivers move in from other states, but it was a thoughtful response on the topic.

Biddle was also most able to talk about the role of buses in helping connect communities. I asked candidates to name a bus line that they feel works well in DC, partly to see how many could name a bus line at all. Orange gave an example of a bus line, the X2, but couldn't name it without help from a staffer who shouted it out unprompted.

Holness, marriage, and the Redskins: Dr. E. Gail Anderson Holness, generally considered a long-shot candidate, gave some reasons to appreciate her candidacy, but also some reasons for concern. As a resident of Ward 1, she lives in the most urban neighborhood among the candidates, and says she rides a bicycle and takes many forms of transit regularly. She was able to name many bus lines and talk about them in depth.

However, Holness was the only candidate of the four not to encourage Maryland residents to vote to keep the new same-sex marriage law. She also said on last week's WPFW debate that she supports giving land to the Redskins for a practice facility, on the theory that the master plan calls for recreational space.

The plan does ask for recreation space, but intended to serve local residents, not to be a fenced-off facility that only serves a professional team. I pushed on this issue, asking her why she would fulfill a neighborhood request in this way. She didn't have a good answer and seemed confused by the policy details.

The other candidates all reaffirmed their opposition to the practice facility. Orange said he would support bringing the actual team back and potentially using public funds, if it were part of a plan to create a "livable, walkable" community around the stadium as the District is doing at the ballpark.

"Livable, walkable" actually is a phrase Orange spoke at least 5 times over the course of the debate. It's a testament to the phrase Tommy Wells coined for his campaign slogan, and the policies behind it, that Orange has latched on. Hopefully this means he genuinely supports the principles of "livable, walkable" communities; either way, he clearly believes it's a growing political force.

Kwame's revenge: Speaking of Mr. "Livable, Walkable" Wells, the forum's most dramatic moment came near the end, when Orange suggested that Wells should have at least toned down his criticism of Kwame Brown's Lincoln Navigator scandal, to avoid losing his committee and his opportunity to advance his agenda. Shapiro quickly disagreed, arguing that Wells was right to speak up and that it shows the "dysfunction" in the current council that others did not come to his defense.

Did the forum help you make up your mind? What stuck out as most meaningful to you?

Oligopolies share an important characteristic with monopolies: firms price goods and services not based simply on supply and demand, but in the way that maximizes their revenue, while taking into consideration how their competitors behave. Oligopoly industries are notorious difficult to understand, and game theory scholars have stepped into help explain why these firms behave the way they do.

In a perfectly competitive market, competition among firms brings down prices. In an oligopoly, this is also true to an extent. Consider the case of a well-known oligopoly: airlines. The air travel industry is dominated by a small number of firms and barriers to entry are extremely high. Even so, "fare wars" occasionally drive prices down and yield great deals for consumers.

Car sharing is unlike air travel in one key way: customers are screened for safe driving records, and must be a member of a given company to use its cars. In the case of Zipcar, a potential customer must submit an application that shows that they have a driver's license and have committed no serious infractions behind the wheel. If a potential customer lacks either of these, he or she is ineligible for the service.

Imagine if airlines operated similarly: Before booking a trip, you would have to buy a membership with the airline. You'd only be able to buy fares from those companies where you held a membership. Airlines would still compete for business on price, but in different ways. "Fare wars" would be a much less likely occurance.

In that sense, the market for car-sharing is more like the cell phone industry. Consumers are allowed to sign up with as many wireless carriers as they please; but most pick just one and stick with it. Rates are a major selling point, as are features like service coverage and available phones.

Even with monopoly status in many cities, and the perception of success, Zipcar is not a profitable company. In it's ten-year history, the firm has never turned a profit. Until recently, the District indirectly subsidized the company by offering choice parking spaces at below-market rates.

Arguably, Zipcar was able to pass those savings on to their customers. And with monopoly status, it became a one-stop shop for anyone looking to have access to a shared car. If, instead, the region's 800-some shared cars had been split among four companies, a customer holding a membership with only one service would have access to only a fraction of the total number of cars.

Still, competition will likely mean more total shared cars in the region, which is good from an urbanist perspective. It should benefit the consumer by forcing the industry, including Zipcar, to offer attractive rates and quality service. Just don't expect it to drive down rates significantly or drastically alter the market in the immediate future.

Auto insurance is typically divided into two basic risk categories: collision/damage and liability. Collision coverage usually takes care of damage to or theft of the car; whereas liability insurance covers the damage to another person, their vehicle, and their property, in the event of an incident.

Of the two, liability is the much bigger risk.

Collision risk is essentially capped at the value of the car a person is renting. If they wreck a rental car, without insurance, they're on the hook for paying for that vehicle.

That's an expensive proposition, but it's relatively small compared to the theoretically limitless risk they face in the event that they injure or kill someone while behind the wheel. These days, personal injury attorneys are constantly on the hunt for victims who were hurt or disabled in these types of incidents.

Rental car companies do offer products that protect their customers from both collision and liability risk, but these products are expensive. Enterprise, for example, offers damage waivers for $13.99 - $18.99, and supplemental liability protection for $11.99. That adds an additional $26 to $31 per day to a car rental. In some cases, the price of the insurance and waivers can cost more than the rate for the car itself.

For this reason, travel advisers sometimes say it's best to decline the add-ons that rental car companies offer when you step up to the counter. It's often believed that insurance products are profit-centers for rental companies and bad deals for the customer. This may be true, but only if the customer already carries a good insurance policy.

What about credit cards? Many renters mistakenly believe that their credit card offers adequate protection. But again, if you don't have your own auto insurance, this isn't the case.

Most credit cards offer a type of "secondary collision" coverage, which kicks in only after you've filed claims with your "primary" insurance provider. That might be your auto insurance policy, if you have one, or your homeowners or renters policy, in the event of damage or theft.

Even when credit card coverage does take effect, it might only cover damage to the car you are driving. When I looked at the fine print of my own credit card, I found that the protection is indeed rather limited. It reads:

This coverage is not all-inclusive, which means it does not cover such things as personal injury or personal liability. It does not cover you for any damages to other vehicles or property. It does not cover you for any injury to any party.

Even the "premium" coverage American Express offers, which costs the cardholder an additional $25 per rental, doesn't cover liability risk. The main benefit to AmEx's premium coverage is that it is "primary," so if you do need to file a claim, your auto, homeowners or renters insurance provider doesn't need to handle it, and won't raise your premiums as a result. It's also usually less expensive than the waivers offered by the rental companies.

Many insurance companies offer a product called a "non-owners policy," also referred to as a "named-operator policy." This is auto insurance for people who don't own their own cars. Information about it can be difficult to come by.

I called auto insurance companies who advertise in the area, who then referred me to agents in DC after hearing my ZIP code. After being passed from one person to the next, I eventually got some answers about this product. One agent in DC explained that these policies are often required by law for people who have lost their drivers licenses for one reason or another, and that the premiums can be very high.

When I asked if I could receive a quote, he explained that the average cost of a non-owners policy in DC is roughly $600 per year. He talked me out of getting a quote, recommending instead that I buy insurance through the rental car companies, as the non-owners policy wouldn't offer savings or give me better protection.

For car-free renters, insurance options are limited. Buying supplemental liability protection from rental companies is virtually necessary, unless you are comfortable with the bare-bones, state-mandated level of liability coverage that rental companies are required to provide when you drive off of the lot.

Collision coverage can go either way. For 100% guaranteed protection, you can purchase the damage waivers offered at the time of rental. If you're willing to take on some risk, the secondary coverage offered by most credit cards might be enough to cover your bases.

For car-free renters, the key is homework. Even though the options are expensive, simply assuming that your credit card covers you may be a riskier move than you're willing to take.

When you're done, you just park it anywhere on the street, even in a wholly different neighborhood than where you picked it up. Car2go is working with DC to allow cars to park in RPP zones across the city, on the logic that the cars will serve those residents in RPP zones who don't have their own cars. They will also work out deals with garages in downtown areas.

They already run service in Austin, Vancouver, and in the German cities of Hamburg and Ulm. San Diego is starting up soon with an all-electric vehicle fleet. (DC's wouldn't be electric at first, since we don't yet have the infrastructure for charging the vehicles.)

In Austin, the service costs 35¢ per minute for short trips, plus tax. Once you hit $12.99 in an hour (which takes 38 minutes), then it's a flat $12.99 an hour, and a maximum of $65.99 per day. There are also charges for driving more than 150 miles.

Like with other car sharing services, car2go pays for gas, insurance, maintenance, and all parking. There's only a $35 one-time fee to join, with no annual fees. They anticipate using the same pricing in DC as in Austin.

Zipcar, by contrast, costs $25 to join (less) but $60 a year (much more). Hourly rates start at $7.75 (less) but require 1-hour minimums, and the daily maximum is a bit more.

In many ways, car2go compared to single-passenger vehicles is analogous to Capital Bikeshare versus owning your own bike. Single-passenger biking requires storing the bike at home, and parking it at the destination. If you bicycle one way, you have to then ride the other way (or leave the bike at work, or take it on Metro or a bus). The same goes for driving.

With car2go's model, as with Capital Bikeshare, people can use cars for one-way trips and use transit, bicycling, walking or something else for other legs of the trip. Like Capital Bikeshare, people who own cars might even find it useful to take car2go, such as if they're out somewhere and want to drive back, or need to get somewhere fast and can't find a cab but would rather not park at the destination all day and can ride transit back.

However, also like Capital Bikeshare, I wonder about cars ending up congregated in certain areas and not available in others. Car2go business development manager Adam Johnson said that they don't anticipate this being a big problem, however, and it hasn't in their other cities. I'm still skeptical, though.

Johnson said cars "tend to gravitate" toward areas where many people use them. Will that mean cars will be difficult to find in other areas? They clearly realize the political importance of serving all parts of the city, and Johnson said they will definitely have cars east of the river, for instance. In fact, he said, car2go's service "generates a lot more accessibility" for people in those areas, where there are few taxis.

But what if someone parks a vehicle in a low density area where there are few members and so the car won't get taken the other way? Or what about all cars flowing toward downtown in the morning and away at night? Johnson said they can do some redistributing, but generally don't have to. He added, "The onus is on us to make sure we have members everywhere."

The spur-of-the-moment nature of car2go might encourage many people to use it who might not use something like Zipcar. Zipcar is great, but there are some psychological barriers. You have to reserve more than enough time to get the car back on time, since someone might be using it after you and you'll get hit with a penalty if you're not back.

When I've used Zipcar, that's sometimes created some stress, where I know I have to leave at a certain time and worry about traffic. It's a feeling somewhat like having to go catch a plane, and it can be unpleasant. With car2go, that's not a concern. Car2go does allow making reservations, though they say most people don't actually end up making them.

What effect would car2go have on traffic? It's great that Capital Bikeshare is lowering the barrier to biking, because it's good for the city to have more people biking. Biking takes up very little road space compared to driving, and the more people ride, the safer it is for everyone.

We don't want to encourage more car trips. Drivers don't want them because the more people drive, the worse the traffic. Non-drivers don't want them because more driving hurts air quality and often makes roads less safe.

Even though it's a service about providing cars, Zipcar actually reduces overall driving. When they opened in Baltimore, the members who joined started walking, biking, and riding transit more. 38% reported taking more than 5 car trips in the previous month, but then only 12% did in the last month, according to a Zipcar survey.

Johnson says car2go hasn't yet been able to collect similar statistics on the effect of their service on driving, but that they believe they, too, lead to reduced car usage and more transit, biking, and walking.

Car2go also has an API for people to be able to integrate it into other web, mobile and other apps. That's important because we're going to see more and more multimodal trip planners, information screens, and other services in the future, showing people all of their travel options from buses to bikes to cars.

More travel options allows us to make more efficient use of our road network and scarce land. Like Zipcar, car2go has the potential to allow far more people to use each car, reducing unsightly or expensive parking space and saving families a lot of money in loans and maintenance.

When people can choose at a moment's notice between a bus, Metro, walking, their own bike, a Capital Bikeshare bike, a Zipcar, a car2go car, and more, living without cars or with fewer cars per person becomes much more convenient and achievable.

Update: Here are a few additional points about the car2go model that some commenters have asked about:

• Can you just take the car to an office in Herndon and leave it there until evening? No. There will be an initial boundary where you have to end each rental, perhaps the borders of DC. You can drive outside, but have to end inside.

• What about meters? Johnson said they're still trying to figure that out. If they don't get permission to be at meters but can park in RPP zones, they can just arrange enough garage spaces downtown, and in neighborhoods there is enough room on RPP blocks.

• Will cars get parked in rush hour only zones and then towed? Users will have to end a rental at a space that's legal to park in all day, not a rush hour only space or something of that nature.

Also, Johnson said in a followup email that they don't see this as an "either/or" between Zipcar and car2go. In fact, he suggested, many people who might not sign up for Zipcar might now do so because combining the two gives more flexibility.

Fund green alleys. Many alleys have crumbling surfaces and greatly need repair, but there hasn't been much money for this in recent years. $1 million would fund a new Green Alleys program, picking some alleys to rebuild with permeable paving, energy-efficient LED lighting, trees, and more.

Keep Circulator fare. Wells is proposing to keep the Circulator fare at $1, rolling back Mayor Gray's proposal to make it $2 cash and $1.50 with SmarTrip. Downtown businesses argued that it would cut ridership substantially, perhaps even reversing all or most of the expected revenue gain. The Circulator is also going east of the river, and some felt it wasn't right for it to finally go there and double in price at the same time.

The funding for this comes partly through use of one-time funds at WMATA, so the Council will have to look at the Circulator fare again next year. Wells wants that to happen once the Council has reviewed and approved DDOT's plans for longer-term Circulator expansion.

Semi-replace 7th Street Circulator. The north-south Circulator is still going away. To partly make up for it, WMATA is creating a 74 bus to travel between I Street NW and the Southwest Waterfront along a route similar to that part of the Circulator's, and extending the V8 bus, which connects Minnesota Avenue to Southwest, along 7th Street to downtown as well.

Hire ward planners, development reviewers, and parking czar. Wells also wants to restore six positions at DDOT which have been vacant for some time. Gray's budget cut most vacant positions entirely. The six positions include three ward planners, for wards 2, 3, and 5. The ward planners made sure that all DDOT projects in a ward fit together well, and provided useful points of contact for the communities involved.

DDOT also needs to staff up its development review department, which looks at planned developments and zoning filings and encourage developers to effectively accommodate pedestrians and bicycles, consider good stormwater management, and include Transportation Demand Management programs. Wells would add 2 positions for this.

The final and most exciting staff position is a parking program manager, or "parking czar." DDOT's parking program has been a tremendous disappointment for years. The performance parking pilot zones didn't see the kind of experimentation that the legislation asked for. Some neighborhoods have wanted performance parking but haven't been able to get it.

DDOT has been mailing out free visitor parking passes in several wards, which leaves large opportunities for abuse. They have promised for years to set up a better system, but haven't. If they can get a good parking program manager, DDOT can finally be the national leader in parking policies they once seemed to be, but got eclipsed by San Francisco and other cities.

Start performance parking on H Street. Wells would create a third performance parking zone, around H Street NE (G to I Streets from 3rd to 15th). Residential streets in the area would become resident-only for one side of the street, as in the other zones, and meters set to achieve 10-20% available spaces.

Protect neighborhood RPP funds. The performance parking pilot zones dedicate most of the revenue raised to local neighborhood improvements, giving residents a stake in the success of performance parking. Gray's budget took this money away to use as general revenue; Wells wants to restore it.

Maintain traffic enforcement officers. The proposal would restore 5 traffic enforcement officers cut in Gray's budget. There are plenty of places where enforcement can make pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers all safer by stopping dangerous behavior. Also, DDOT wants to do more to stop parking in loading zones, bus stops, and handicap placard abuse.

Keep "sweepercam" tickets. Gray's budget eliminated the "sweepercam" system, where street sweeping trucks automatically photograph vehicles illegally blocking sweeping and DPW can send them tickets. Without this, DPW would have to have people manually enforce the sweeping.

Also, as the report points out, the cameras allow DPW not to ticket anyone parked in a sweeping zone after the actual sweeping has finished, whereas if officers did it manually, they wouldn't know and would still ticket those cars. The committee report restores $300,000 for this program.

Create a DDOT enterprise fund. When DDOT lost its "unified fund," it lost some ability to dynamically fund innovations without going through the Council first. Budget staff at that time talked about creating a special fund with some money that can go to such programs. Wells' proposal moves Capital Bikeshare advertising revenue into this fund, along with truck weight fees, multispace meter advertising, car sharing fees, loading zone permit fees, and a few others.

And more. Wells' proposal also funds a "bait bike" where officers place a bike which looks ripe to steal, and watch to catch people who try to steal it. $50,000 will also go to the Committee on Libraries, Parks and Recreation for neighborhood parks. Gray's budget cut the $10,000 annual funding each for the Bicycle Advisory Council and the Pedestrian Advisory Council; Wells is restoring both.

Revenue

How will Wells and his committee pay for all this?

Errors in the budget. Some money comes from finding mistakes in the budget. For example, Gray's budget office moved a lot of DDOT positions from the capital budget over to the operating budget. That's mainly an accounting issue; the jobs are still there, but some categories of spending went from large amounts to zero and other categories went from zero to big. Upon scrutinizing all of this, Council staff realized that some of the jobs had been moved over twice, leading to double-funding in the budget.

Higher and graduated RPP fees. A big part of the increase comes from a longtime GGW recommendation: increasing RPP fees, especially for households with multiple cars. DC's fees for resident parking permits are remarkably low, at $15/year. Renting any other chunk of space anywhere in the city costs far more. San Francisco charges $98/year, for example.

Under Wells' proposal, RPP fees will increase to $35/year, except for seniors 65 and older who will only pay $25/year. Once the DMV finishes a computer upgrade to support it, additional permits for each household will cost $50/year for the second and $100/year for additional permits beyond that.

Fines for repeat parking offenders. Fines for parking in residential areas beyond the 2 hours allowed, or for parking in resident-only areas, would increase for repeat offenders. The fine now is $30, except $60 around the ballpark during games only. The $30 fines would remain $30 for the 1st and 2nd tickets someone receives in a single calendar year, but become $60 beyond that.

Reciprocity fees. Congressional, military, Presidental appointees, and some others are allowed to have reciprocity permits, getting the benefits of registering cars in DC including RPP permits but without actually becoming DC residents. They pay $10 annually for this, while students have to pay $338 and temporary residents $250. Wells proposes increasing the reciprocity fee to $50.

What's not included

WMATA, fully. Gray's budget slightly increased DC's contributions to WMATA, but DC was still $10.422 million short of the level needed to avoid service cuts. Wells found another $6.265 million, and is asking the Council to consider the other $4.157 million as a council-wide priority in the next phase of the budget process.

Each committee first considers its own budget, and moves around money within that area, raising related revenues if desired to restore programs. Then, the whole Council looks at further cuts or restorations broadly; the remaining WMATA gap will be one of them.

Street sweeping inspectors. Gray's budget cuts the numbers of officers enforcing street sweeping rules. Wells said in this morning's markup that he wanted to increase the numbers, but unlike with the DDOT traffic officers, the CFO wouldn't certify revenue from these officers, so the Council would have to come up with more revenue to restore them.

Policies

The committee report also touches on some other topics which aren't line items in the budget, but which have budgetary implications. It asks DDOT to organize a task force to look at long-term transportation funding as gas taxes decline; to try to implement Circulator expansions even sooner than proposed; to add more efficient streetlights; and more. DDOT has also promised to conduct a transportation study on M Street SE/SW.

For DPW, the committee asks them to aggressively push fleet sharing, especially to replace older vehicles; to come up with a strategy to increase recycling; and to publish more information on costs that Wells has been asking for.

The committee had its markup session scheduled for 10 am, but as of this writing didn't have enough Councilmembers present to make up a quorum. Assuming it passes the markup, this will get agglomerated with the budget reports from the other committees.

The full Council will then take up the WMATA funding issue and other larger priorities from other areas. Issues outside of transportation, like the proposed income tax increase for people making over $200,000 and cuts to human services, will be debated at the full Council level.

Simplified land use

The official DC Zoning and Comprehensive Land Use maps are incredibly detailed and useful tools that serve specific, necessary functions. They're also incredibly complex and difficult to read at a glance.

I wanted to see a map that showed DC's land use in the very simplest terms, to know where the commercial streets are, to see how downtown might reasonably expand, and to see where redevelopment is most likely (commercial properties are more likely to redevelop than residential ones).

The following map shows predominantly commercial areas in red, predominantly residential ones in yellow, and everything else in gray.

For those interested in Washington as a living and working city, this is the city at just about its most bare.

Metrobus

Here's the Metrobus system, shown alone and geographically accurate.

Geographically accurate Metrorail maps are pretty easy to come by, but I've never seen the Metrobus system all on one page, stripped of other detail.

Zipcar locations

There's a regional map at left, with the urban core at right. Click either for larger versions.

Note that to keep these maps simple I'm not putting much on them in regards to geographic reference points. I'm assuming that most readers are familiar enough with regional geography to read the maps without street labels or other detailed reference material. That information could be added, but I'm interested in seeing these with as little visual clutter as possible, and I assume that at least some of you are interested as well.

City topography

Interesting features that are clearly visible include Capitol Hill, Rock Creek gorge, the Anacostia bluffs, the floodplain escarpment at the north end of the L'Enfant city, the heights of Tenleytown (culminating at Fort Reno for DC's highest point), and a large hill which Fort Totten sits atop.

In 2008 and 2009, DC replaced 360 individual vehicles with just 58 shared vehicles. DC saved about $1 million a year by doing this.

Let's give Howland his magic wand. Ask DPW to review its inventory of official vehicles and identify each one that has to remain dedicated to one person or agency. DPW should release a report to the Council and the public about each one, with an explanation of why it needs to be a dedicated vehicle.

Then, for all the others, switch them out for fleet share. Even if just 2 dedicated vehicles turn into 1 fleet share vehicle, it saves money. Plus, since Zipcar has a certain amount of fixed cost to run its systems, it ought to be able to give DC a bit better of a rate per car for the next few hundred fleet share vehicles.

Some DC government agencies, where one facility is far from others, might not lend themselves to fleet share. But DC has been consolidating many agencies into a number of buildings around the District, most of which are also right by Metro stations.

By reducing the numbers of vehicles the District owns, it would also cut down on parking needs. At buildings where part of the garage is commercial, like at the Reeves Center, each space not being used by DC means another space that can be rented out to others daily or monthly, saving even more money.

Plus, why not let the general public rent out fleet share vehicles on weekends? DC has a bunch of fleet share vehicles in the garage at the Reeves Center, for instance, of which very few are probably used on weekends. Meanwhile, there's plenty of weekend demand at 14th and U, perhaps more than on weekdays.

The Reeves Center garage is already open to the public as well. Let most but not all DC fleet share vehicles turn into regular Zipcars just for the weekend. DC could run this as a pilot at the Reeves Center, the most obvious spot, to figure out how well this works and whether it's worth expanding to other facilities.

This year is the ideal time to do this. There's tremendous voter outrage over the existing official vehicles. Howland, Mayor Gray, and the DC Council would find plenty of public support for any effort to reduce the size of the District's fleet and save money.