Austin proposes large-scale car sharing program

From Austin Business Journal, March 26, 2009...

Austin city officials on Thursday [March 26] unveiled plans for a 200-vehicle, pilot car share program that they say would be the largest of its kind in the nation.

The six-month pilot program calls for a lease agreement for smart-cars with car2go, an arm of Daimler. The agreement is slated to go before the city council on April 2.

If approved, the deal would mark car2go's entry into the burgeoning U.S. car-share market.

During the six-month pilot period, the city would offer on-street and off-street parking spaces for the car share vehicles in exchange for an equivalent amount of car2go driving time for work-related use by city employees. The city would use the pilot to determine whether long-term possibilities exist to postpone or supplement its own vehicle fleet purchases.

Read more...