Car sharing provider, Zipcar, may finally be expanding its very, very limited service in LA. The City of Los Angeles is proposing a one-year pilot program with Zipcar, the company who abandoned local residents earlier this year after gobbling up Flexcar. The Department of Transportation will go before the City Council on August 5th to ask for permission to enter into an agreement with Zipcar for a pilot program to expand Zipcar service around USC and UCLA only, where Zipcars are already in use. Unfortunately, it appears that service to other areas is not in the cards.
Via the Department of Transportation (DOT) staff report [PDF]:
On June 18, 2008, DOT staff and representatives of affected Council offices met with Ms. Jenny Larios Berlin, Zipcar's General Manager - Universities, to discuss some of the details of the planned pilot operations. At this meeting, Ms. Larios Berlin explained that, at this time, Zipcar was primarily focusing on college students as their target customers and was interested in pursuing pilot programs in the areas next to the two college campuses (UCLA and USC). These pilot locations would allow them to expand their existing on-campus operations into the surrounding student housing areas. Zipcar was seeking on-street parking spaces in each of the two pilot areas for six to 12 carsharing vehicles. The report also notes that two request for proposals were sent to car-sharing programs around the country, but only Zipcar responded. We're stuck with 'em.
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