The District Department of Transportation is offering up some of Zipcar's parking spots to new applicants. Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

As rental car company Hertz eyes competing with Zipcar in the Washington, D.C. market with its new carsharing service called Hertz on Demand, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) opportunistically decided to require a public bidding for 86 existing, on-street carsharing spaces across the District. Market rates will be about $200-$400 per month, translating to an extra $1-$2 per hour for members, once Zipcar passes along the costs, according to my experience running PhillyCarShare, a large nonprofit carsharing organization in Philadelphia, Penn.

I’m disappointed that DDOT is planning to levy parking fees on carsharing organizations. This is bad policy.

The worst part is that car owners will continue to park on-street virtually for free. Annual tags will still cost $15 per household, with the second car parking totally free. Why should carsharing members pay market rates for on-street parking, while car owners get a subsidy? It’s totally backward policy.

Carsharing should be treated as a public good, even more than the on-street parking that it occupies. Each shared vehicle replaces about 14 private cars, according to comprehensive national research by the University of California, Berkeley. Plus, after joining, members drive about 44 percent fewer miles, according to the average result of ten North American impact studies. Other research shows that carsharing members consume less gas, reduce their carbon emissions by nearly 1 ton per year, walk and bike more, and spend more dollars locally.

DDOT, rather than levy a 20 percent tax on carsharing members whose behavior benefits the neighborhood, should keep carsharing affordable and instead tax private car use – the main source of congestion and many environmental problems. DDOT could raise the same revenue with a painless $2 annual fee for all residential parking tags. Or it could simply charge $100 annually for each household’s second car. Or implement smart meters, which vary prices based on real-time demand, ensuring that around 15 percent of commercial on-street parking spaces remain available. In downtown Redwood City, Calif., smart meters generate $1 million of additional revenue each year for safer, cleaner sidewalks.

In fact, Donald Shoup, in his seminal book, “The High Cost of Free Parking,” estimates the market value of on-street spaces in central Los Angeles at $31,000 each – more valuable than the vehicles parked in them. Subsidizing car ownership with free parking distorts the market, encouraging more people to own and drive cars.

Imagine the huge demand for more sustainable forms of urban transportation, if DDOT charged fair market rates for every on-street space. The revenue could fund bike lanes, bus rapid transit (BRT), metrorail service upgrades, attractive pedestrian spaces – and even carsharing.

As Shoup says, everyone pays for free parking – except the driver. Now in D.C., sadly, even carsharing members will.

As for DDOT’s invitation for bids: Interested companies have until July 6 at 2:00 p.m. to submit their proposals.

Update, 7/6/11: A previous version of this post misidentified Enterprise as the rental car company that offers the Hertz on Demand carsharing service. The correct company is Hertz.

Welcome back to TheCityFix Picks, our series highlighting the newsy and noteworthy of the past week. Each Friday, we’ll run down the headlines falling under TheCityFix’s five themes: mobility, quality of life, environment, public space, and technology and innovation

Mobility

Cape Town unveiled the first phase of the MyCiTi bus service on its Integrated Rapid Transit System.

Volkswagen announced it will be entering the car sharing market in the fall, with a new program in Hanover, Germany.

Lagos, Nigeria received an additional 100 buses for its bus rapid transit (BRT) scheme to accommodate for expanding routes in the ever-bustling city.

Germany’s state-owned rail company Deutsche Bahn and Siemens AG joined in an order for 300 high-speed trains as a part of a EUR 6 billion (US$ 8.5 billion) Deutsche Bahn project to be completed by 2030.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced $2 billion in much-anticipated funding for nationwide high-speed rail, including $795 million to upgrade the Northeast Corridor and $404 million to expand service in the Midwest.

Quality of Life

This week marked the official launch of the Decade of Action for Road Safety, a global effort to reduce death and disability from road traffic crashes, whose participants include EMBARQ (the producer of this blog).

Michigan’s Office of Highway Safety Planning released 2010’s traffic crash numbers, which found a 6 percent increase in fatalities involving pedestrians and a 55 percent increase in bicycle-related deaths.

Indiana became the 32nd state in the union to make it illegal to text while driving. The law is in effect as of July 1, and fines may total upwards of $500.

May is National Youth Traffic Safety Month in the United States and for good reason: The number of teen traffic crash fatalities during the summer months of May, June, July and August is nearly double that of the rest of the year.

Pay-per-drive vehicle insurance holds potential benefits for drivers, the environment and traffic conditions, indicates a new study by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute.

Environment

The global green building market is expected to grow from $7.2 trillion to $12 trillion in the next few decades, declared Niclas Svenningsen of the Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative.

Spain’s government is supporting energy savings and sustainable mobility through a new subsidy program incentivizing the spread of electric vehicles within the country.

Transit buses are expected to continue going green, as Pike Research calculated that 50 percent of the 64,000 total transit buses expected to be delivered worldwide in 2015 will be alternative fuel.

Chinese ministries signed an agreement to jointly promote the development of a combined rail-and-waterway transport network, citing reasons of increasing efficiency, saving energy and reducing carbon emissions.

Public Space

If three-quarters of California’s cars were electric by 2025, the number of pollution-related lung diseases and asthma attacks in the city would decrease by 70 percent, reports a new study by the American Lung Association.

In honor of the newly launched Decade of Action for Road Safety, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a multi-pronged program to reduce traffic-related deaths, including a new “slow zone” in the Bronx.

The tallest “living wall” in Europe, Frosts Vertiscapes, was recently completed in London. Comprising one wall of the Mint Hotel, the vertical garden elegantly integrates both ecological and structural form and function into the public space.

Technology and Innovation

The Chicago Transit Authority announced it will be enhancing its bus system with 160 LED display signs at high-volume bus shelters throughout the city.

An energy-efficient dual-fuel Volksbus prototype, running on compressed natural gas (CNG) and diesel, was launched in Rio de Janerio by Brazil’s Secretary of State for Transport and Economic Development, Energy, Industry and Services.

Toyota launched its new Prius model in Japan, the Prius a, which boasts both five- and seven-seat models. Toyota also announced there will be an unavoidable delay in delivering the new Prius models because of production slow-downs resulting from the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Bangalore University is set to launch India's first university bike share. Photo by Esther Dyson

Welcome back to TheCityFix Picks, our series highlighting the newsy and noteworthy of the past week. Each Friday, we’ll run down the headlines falling under TheCityFix’s five themes: mobility, quality of life, environment, public space, and technology and innovation.

Mobility

China’s attention-grabbing growth in high-speed rail experienced a series of setbacks this past week, with both safety and ridership concerns.

25 buses were delivered to Maputo on Wednesday, bringing the number of new buses in the Mozambique city to 75. The buses, imported within the past two months from India, can each hold 75 passengers.

Cape Town announced its Integrated Transport System will likely be finished by next week, according to the city’s media manager, Kylie Hatton.

Oil companies came under fire as first-quarter profits soared amidst high gas prices. BP reported a 17 percent profit increase and ConocoPhillips reported a 43 percent profit increase.

AMTRAK is reportedly a leading contender for $1.3 billion of the remaining $2 billion of President Barack Obama’s High Speed Rail funds.

Quality of Life

A new report by researchers at the University of Quebec in Montreal indicates that higher gas prices lead to less urban sprawl. The report found that, on average, a 1 percent increase in gas prices has caused a 32 percent increase in population living in the inner city.

The first bike sharing operation at an Indian university is set to launch at Bangalore University.

An analysis of the Australian government’s spending aroused discontent among citizens, as it revealed the government spends 4.3 times more on construction of public roads and bridges than it does on public railway construction.

The U.S. Senate passed a new fee this week that charges electric vehicle owners $100 annually for each EV owned. The controversial fee has been rationalized by senators as helping to ensure that EV owners “pay their fair share” for the roads.

Environment

T-MAPPER, a newly launched report and website, commissioned by the European Commission, aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of actions being taken to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector.

Adding to their efforts in becoming the world’s greenest city, Vancouver announced this week that it will be Canada’s first recipient of the “car2go“ car sharing service.

Pakistan’s National Climate Change Policy, which emphasizes the importance of vertical over horizontal urban development, has been sent to the federal cabinet after receiving a formal approval from the ministry of environment.

The American Institute of Architects announced the winners of its 15th annual COTE Top Ten Green Projects.

Public Space

The city of Washington, D.C. finds greenscape growth with the creation of the 10-acre CityCenterDC, the largest downtown redevelopment project in an American city.

The National Summit on City Design, a three-day event to celebrate accomplishments in city design, is currently underway in Chicago.

New analysis by the National Complete Streets Coalition indicates that “complete street” policy approaches at the state and local government level are on the rise in the U.S.

Technology and Innovation

The hubbub surrounding Apple’s use of individual location tracking data, information used in smart phone’s navigational applications, was addressed in a press release from the company on Wednesday.

Creating their case for well-roundedness, the popular electric vehicles of the Chevrolet Volt and Nisson Leaf earned the highest possible safety ratings from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Half a billion people around the world will use mobile devices as passenger tickets on metros, subways and buses by 2015, predicts a new report from Juniper Research.

Capital Bikeshare might have to add a new fleet of bicycles to its program after its popularity with LivingSocial Deals. Photo by DDOT DC.

LivingSocial, an international company advertising group purchase offers, presented a deal last Friday for memberships to Washington, D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare, a regional bike-sharing initiative. The deal was a choice between a one-month membership for $12, or a $37 annual membership to access Capital Bikeshare’s 1,100 bicycles around the capital—a 51 percent savings off the original membership price. Although the deal is no longer available, there have already been 8,132 memberships purchased through the website, which makes us wonder if Capital Bikeshare’s fleet of bikes will be enough to supply this high-demand service. It’s also an interesting experiment in increasing ridership on public and non-motorized transportation.

We are excited to see the interest for bike-share here in the capital. Hopefully, bike-sharing’s high demand in the capital will be as contagious elsewhere in the world.

University campuses across the U.S. are working to incorporate bicycle culture into the daily lives of students. Photo by christine592.

Rutgers University-Newark hosted a group bike ride last week to encourage bicycle commuting around campus. Students rode their bikes along the one-mile path to Newark’s Branch Brook Park and past the cherry blossoms, as part of the university’s effort to promote bicycle commuting for a healthy, active and involved community.

The City of Newark, in general, has been making efforts to promote bicycling by offering group bike rides through Branch Brook Park. The Brick City Bike Collective, a bike advocacy group based out of Newark, organized the 2011 Newark Branchbrook Park Cherry Blossom Bike Tour that will take place next Saturday, April 16 at 1:00 p.m.

As part of Newark’s effort, Rutgers University has also been actively encouraging bicycling over the last year, according to NJ.com. “University officials held city tours, built a new bike park and offered free loaner bikes to persuade students, faculty and staff to leave their cars at home,” the article reports.

“We’re trying to change the commuting culture here,” Brad Armstrong, a representative from Rutgers-Newark’s Commuter Transit and Parking Services, said.

With a growing student population and a limited number of parking spaces, the group bike ride also served as an alternative mode of transportation to students who live on campus. The university pursues strict pricing policies to discourage cars on campus. Resident students are required to purchase parking permits that cost up to an annual fee of about $1,000. Commuter students can purchase the same permit for $600.

TreeHugger reports that the University of New England made a similar effort to decrease car use on campus. According to the article, the university reduced the number of freshmen who brought cars to campus from 75 percent to 25 percent by distributing 105 bikes the first week of school.

Rutgers-New Brunswick and other university campuses around the country are also exploring bike-share programs. “Ripon College has invested $50,000 in a program where 200 Trek mountain bikes, helmets and locks were bought , and about 180 freshmen signed up for the program,” according to TreeHugger.

Universities are also looking into methods of making bike-share programs convenient by linking bike-share accounts with student ID cards, which are already a significant part of student life since they provide access to meal plans, residencies and debit accounts. According to the article, St. Xavier in Chicago is one of those universities.

“All 925 resident students automatically become members through their ID cards,” TreeHugger continues. “Students can wave their ID card over a docking port. The port is attached to a rubber tube, which can be used as a lock and opened by entering an access code.”

But John Pucher, a professor of urban transportation policy at Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, has concerns over the spread of bike-share programs, according to The New York Times.

“American and Canadian cities have been making impressive advances in the provision of more extensive and improved cycling infrastructure, yet have made little if any progress on the crucial complementary measures needed to restrict car use and make it more expensive,” Pucher said in an interview with Momentum magazine.

However, universities around the country have been making strides in incorporating bicycling into the daily lives of students. Jeffrey Riecke reported several examples in last Friday’s TheCityFix Picks: “The League of American Bicyclists announced its awards for America’s Bike Friendly Universities. Stanford University was honored with the highest award of Platinum, and University of California, Davis and Santa Barbara shared the next highest award of Gold.”

Learning to share the road is certainly an important aspect of traffic safety, but it’s critical to accept that all parties sharing the road are responsible for learning the rights of way. Encouraging bicycling and making it a convenient and accessible method of transportation is one way of building the support necessary for expanding bicycle culture.

Buzzcar's business model relies on a "hive mentality" of sharing cars. Logo via Buzzcar.

Robin Chase, the co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, teamed up with Mobivia Groupe, a privately held car maintenance company, to launch yet another innovative car-sharing program: Buzzcar. Announced last week in France, the new technology-driven service allows individuals to rent their own cars through a smartphone application to other drivers in need of some temporary wheels. As co-founder Chase describes it: “leveraging individual’s excess capacity on a common internet platform.”

The system enables individuals, companies and institutions to share their own vehicles with their peers, without having to wait for a car-sharing program to be installed near them. By making private vehicles available for use during their off-time, Buzzcar reduces the number of cars on the road and the resulting occupied parking spaces—a new concept in the car-sharing world. Since the program does not require the addition of new cars to the road, it also prevents the increase of carbon emissions.

Buzzcar allows car owners to set their own rates for renting out their vehicles. Photo via Buzzcar.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Upon downloading the smartphone application, interested drivers can search for available cars in their region and contact the car owner directly. “The first time a new driving member (a Buzzer) rents a vehicle, the car’s owner (the Auto-preneur) will confirm on key exchange that the driver matches the driver’s license and identity card that the driver used when becoming a member,” Chase explains.

The system will also require the driver’s mobile phone number and payment information before making the reservation, all in an effort to ensure security and safety to the car owner. Car owners will also be held up to safety and security standards once they have added their own vehicles into the system.

“Buzzcar creates a user community that is accompanied by recommendations and comments for each driver and owner,” says Chase.  Prior to registration, owners pledge to “maintain the car in a safe and secure manner,” which complemented with ratings and comments from the Buzzcar community, promotes a fair and secure rental system.

In addition to the annual membership fee of €20 ($28), “Buzzers” pay rental fees that are determined by the “Auto-preneurs.” Buzzcar relies on different variables to suggest pricing for a vehicle, but ultimately, the vehicle owners decide on the rental’s price. Through an online price estimator, Buzzcar considers factors like the age of the vehicle, its brand and fuel type, location and mileage. Proximity to other modes of transportation, a fair price and an eagerness to participate in the community will also increase your chances of finding drivers near you, according to Buzzcar’s website.

When people register for Buzzcar, they get to choose an insect-themed avatar for their online persona. The ladybug is "charming and loved by all."

WHAT’S ALL THE BUZZ ABOUT?

France already touts many transportation innovations, including Vélib’, Vélo’v and AutoLib’, that have encouraged people to actively rethink the status quo, Chase says, which is part of the reason she and her partners chose France as the launch site for Buzzcar. “A greater percent of the French population is car-independent, our target market, because of better public transit options and higher price of car ownership,” she says.

Car renting will not begin until May 1. Currently the program is building a sharing network through online enrollment, where users have the opportunity to win €5,609 ($8,000) for signing up. The prize amount is symbolic in that it signifies the financial commitment it takes to own and operate a vehicle in France per year.

“Car-sharing between individuals will grow wherever the owners and drivers are ready to agree,” Chase said in an article for La Tribune. “No need to wait for the goodwill of governments.”

Although Buzzcar is looking forward to expanding worldwide, one of the biggest obstacles to implementing the program in other countries is insurance, which needs to be arranged on a country-by-country basis.

Peer-to-peer car-sharing services are growing their “virtual” fleets in cities all over the world. Companies include WhipCar, Spride Share, RelayRidesand GetAround, whose founder Sam Zeid said his service’s top earner made more than $970 in one month, exemplifying one of the financial advantages of participating.

The launch of Buzzcar and other companies is seen as being part of a larger trend of what some people are calling “The New Sharing Economy,” otherwise known as “collaborative consumption.” The increasingly popular mentality of “what’s mine is yours,” as explained by social innovator and author Rachel Botsman, is due to several factors, including Web and mobile technologies, environmental concerns, online connectivity and sharing, and even the global recession, which stresses practicality over consumption. Considering that a car spends 95 percent of its time sitting idle, why not share the resource with someone else who needs it?

To learn more about Buzzcar, visit the official website, currently in beta: www.buzzcar.com