No Car? No problem! Walking, biking, taxi or pedi-cab will get you anywhere you want to go in this town. Elsewhere in Canada car sharing programs are gaining serious popularity as a transportation alternative. Around the world there are more than 600 cities where people can carshare. 

If you have a car, you know that ownership is not cheap; there are monthly payments, yearly registration fees, insurance, maintenance and repairs and of course fuel (which continues to get more and more expensive!) Since cars spend most of the time sitting in your driveway depreciating they don’t make good economic sense. Car sharing on the other hand provides low cost access to a vehicle when you really need it without the huge debt load of ownership. Typically signing up for a program will cost you about 500 bucks (often a refundable deposit) and other charges are all based entirely on usage. Frequent users may pay up to $35 per month while occasional users may only pay $5.  

The concept of car sharing not surprisingly started in Europe as early as 1948. By the time the sustainable transportation concept arrived in North America in 1993, European programs had already gained serious popularity. Presently, in North America there are more than 15,000 car share members in 31 car sharing programs, sharing 4,600 vehicles. Canada boasts a total of 13 programs with several more on the horizon. Clearly this conscientious concept is catching on.  

Car sharing can take many forms and membership sizes and fleets vary from place to place. For-profit operations provide large fleets of cars at reasonable hourly rental rates. Non-profit, co-operatives are also abundant but usually have smaller fleets. Car sharing can even be done informally by small groups of people who want to pool resources. All car sharing programs, regardless of their organizational structure have similar goals: to reduce pollution by minimizing the number of vehicles on the road, to improve the health of communities and to save money. 

In urban centers transportation is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Local air quality is compromised because of vehicular pollution and traffic congestion. In Canada car sharing programs are one of the key green house gas reduction initiatives supported by the Transport Council of Canada. Fewer cars equal less pollution, reduced congestion and more space in our communities (less parking!) creating more pedestrian friendly environments. 

Small cities and towns can also benefit from car sharing programs because people don’t necessarily need to drive everyday. Residents of small communities that are not commuting use other means to get around i.e.: cycling and walking. These people would find occasional use of a car beneficial without the cost of full-time car ownership. 

Clearly in a town like Jasper where we can walk or bike everywhere not owning a car won’t cramp your style but there are a few drawbacks. Without a car you don’t have the freedom to hop in at a moments notice to drive to a trail head or head out of town. If you need to commute to work by car, or take lots of long trips or if you must have a car with no advance warning you would also find car sharing challenging. The key to being a satisfied car “sharer” is flexibility.

Currently there is no car share program in Jasper to join, but the concept is totally feasible and there are plenty of programs we could model from. Since the basic idea behind sharing instead of buying is to save money, starting up a car share co-op makes complete sense. It has all the benefits of part-time car ownership (good for the environment and the community) with full-time savings.

Nicole Ward is the Environmental Stewardship Coordinator for the Municipality of Jasper and Parks Canada.