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Time To Bring Car-Sharing Service To Downtown Hartford?

Survey to tell whether downtown ready for Zipcars

Hartford Courant Editorial

July 09, 2013

With the University of Connecticut moving its Greater Hartford campus to downtown Hartford, and with a handful of new residential developments on the drawing board, already challenging traffic and parking problems could get worse. One way to help alleviate this congestion would be car-sharing.

Business For Downtown Hartford, the downtown marketing and advocacy group, is conducting a short online survey to see if residents, workers and visitors are interested in having a Zipcar service downtown. Take the survey, which can be found at http://www.bfdh.org.

Founded in Cambridge, Mass, only 13 years ago, Zipcar said to be the world's largest membership-based car-sharing network. It is popular with business travelers, people who don't own cars but need them occasionally, students (Trinity College has a Zipcar service) and others. Zipcar also might be an option for city hall, a less expensive alternative to take-home cars, which many other financially struggling cities have done away with. We urge Mayor Pedro Segarra to take the survey, if he hasn't already.

If car-sharing allows residents not to own a first or second car, or not to bring a car downtown for a short business trip during the day, then it would be a good thing for downtown Hartford — as would more transit, bicycle paths and other transportation alternatives.

Zipcar, which was purchased earlier this year for $500 million by Avis Budget Group, announced in May that it had added service in Minneapolis, its 21st major metropolitan area, and was available at eight major airports.