Dive Brief:
- Sacramento, California, is expanding its community car-sharing program to three new public sites in collaboration with Zipcar and Breathe California Sacramento Region, a nonprofit clean air advocacy group.
- The city’s “Our Community CarShare Sacramento” program launched in 2017 and has provided more than 63,000 trips, according to a March 27 press release. It offers Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles or Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid vehicles.
- Sacramento’s car-sharing program is part of a larger city effort to increase access to EVs and electric bikes in historically disadvantaged communities.
Dive Insight:
The program is part of the city’s EV Blueprint, which also calls for installing Level 2 chargers at 13 sites. The blueprint led to the creation of an electric tricycle lending program through a collaboration with the Sacramento Public Library. The city plans to seek community input to evaluate these initiatives’ effects on equity.
Membership in the community car-sharing program is free, unlike Zipcar’s $9 monthly or $90 annual fee. At least two vehicles are available at each carsharing community, with locations that include public housing and mutual housing. Eligible residents can rent vehicles hourly for up to eight hours in a 24-hour period, for a total of 24 hours per week, to run errands, get to appointments or take local trips, the city says. Users must pay part of the cost of the rental, set at $4 per hour, while OCCS pays the remainder.
“The City is committed to developing a safe and efficient multi-modal transportation network that minimizes impacts to the environment and neighborhoods,” the press release said. Zipcar estimates that the program has helped avoid over 2 million pounds of carbon emissions to date.
