The TTC has announced a partnership with a car-sharing company chairperson Adam Giambrone says gives riders a new way to leave car ownership behind.
A week after the city welcomed BIXI, a bike-sharing service presented as an auxiliary to the transit network, the TTC chose its Davisville Station to show Zipcars and a TTC bus standing together.â?¨BIXI and Zipcar are built to concentrate, at least at first, on central Toronto. BIXI, if it gets enough membership pledges to launch next year, will start lending its bicycles around Yonge Street south of Bloor Street, while Zipcar concentrates most its 360 vehicles downtown and along the Yonge Subway line.But Zipcar, which boasts 60 per cent of its fleet are at most a five-minute walk from a subway stop, is now at York University's Downsview campus and branching out to other spots outside the core."We're urbanizing with the city," General manager Michael Lende said at the press conference on the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 4 to mark his company's inclusion in the TTC's Hot Dealz package for Metropass holders.Standing outside the station on Yonge, Giambrone said there will soon be more Zipcars in TTC lots and suggested in the future people could take a subway from Scarborough to Etobicoke and (presumably after a short hike south from Kipling Station to The Queensway) buy furniture at the local Ikea and return home in a Zipcar."We have to be realistic about people's lifestyles," which require many people to occasionally use a car, Giambrone said, adding "once you own a car, you're more likely to use it," but with car-sharing, people use the service only when they need to.The Massachusetts-based company says it's responsible for taking 5,000 cars off the road since it started in Toronto in 2006.For a year, Zipcar is offering Metropass holders a cut-rate annual membership and to waive a $30 "initiation" fee for new members. It will also offer them a special hourly rate on weekdays until Feb. 4.The president of AutoShare, Zipcar's main rival in the city, said Zipcar's inclusion in Hot Dealz took him by surprise, since both companies have mailed out promotional discounts in the past to annual Metropass subscribers. AutoShare wasn't approached about Hot Dealz and wants to be part of the package too, added Kevin McLaughlin, but said it would be more important to make it simpler for people to join a car-sharing service when they buy a Metropass, as transit users can in Montreal and Chicago."That's the kind of integration and cooperation we should be moving towards." McLaughlin said AutoShare's fleet is nearing 250 vehicles and is near over half of TTC stations, including Royal York in Etobicoke. It expects to place cars at Victoria Park Station in Scarborough this month, he said.AutoShare had 2,500 members four years ago, while both companies together have around 25,000 today, said McLaughlin. "The industry is growing, the pie is growing."Giambrone said Zipcar is included in Hot Dealz to maximize value for Metropass holders and provide another alternative form of transportation, but the partnership can be reviewed."Today we're dealing with Zipcars," he said.