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From a Sustrans e-newsletter. Great image, great email. Check out their site here.

Car Crunch

Motorists in London who give up their vehicles will be entitled to free driving time with a pay-as-you-go car club under a scheme backed by the Mayor of London.

The Car Crunch London initiative aims to reward those who can prove they have sold a car with two year’s membership of a car club and free driving time, which normally costs from £3.95 an hour. The scheme is part of an initiaitve to reduce the number of cars on London’s roads by 100,000 before the 2012 Olympics.
Car Clubs can offer a slick, money-saving and green alternative to private car ownership. If you drive less than 6,000 miles per year it is claimed a car club could save you up to £3,500 a year. Many people don’t notice the true costs of running a car, but when you add up the cost of tax, MOT, fuel, servicing, repairs, depreciation and parking you could be looking at over a hundred pounds a week.

For more details, read this.

The Big Car Club Debate Continues

The Car Club debate has generated some interesting issues and some are questioning why we haven't invited car club operators to contribute. We have!

I expect some are biding their time to respond but hope to have some comments from car club operators soon. There are car clubs planned in residential developments in Harrow in the near future and these will be seen as test cases to determine how borough wide car clubs would operate and what the merits are of them.

However, your opinion matters! So far the pendulum is swinging more against car clubs than for, which is fine if it represents how you feel. Keep the comments coming and here's an even more livelier debate soon.

HOT TOPIC: Car Clubs

Before you read this, please refer to http://www.carclubs.org.uk/ to learn more about what car clubs are and how they operate. Following this, we’d like to raise the topic for discussion:

Car clubs have been around for a while now but it is only recently there’s been a big ‘drive’ (excuse the pun) to promote them. With advertising on streets, on buses and in newspapers, car clubs are being given a big push as a new way of getting around.

But can they be considered sustainable transport or alternative transport? Do car clubs offer low-pollution vehicles for hire and are they succeeding in signing up current car users or encouraging non-car users to switch from the bus to the car?

Also how many car club cars are there across London (and in Harrow) that people can take advantage of and how many of these are needed along a network for there to be a spot to pick up and drop off a car when and where you need one, so that it is worthwhile?

On the carclubs.org.uk website it states that car clubs do save money compared to owning a car but are also suitable for those who occasionally need a car. Is this not encouraging current carsharers who get a lift off family/friends and otherwise walk/cycle/use public transport when they can to consider buying into the car culture and negatively switching habits of positive sustainable transport to a more comfortable ride at whatever cost, because it’s cheaper?

Taking a bus costs £2 in cash fare per journey or bus you switch. So if you need to travel a short distance but need to take two buses that’s £4. The single journey cash fare on the Tube in zone 1 is £4. So compared to the alternatives it may be cheaper to hire a car for 1 hour as part of a car club.

But is this sustainable if it is encouraging current public transport users to switch to car club cars for convenience and won’t more cars on the road mean more transport congestion and pollution?

What is your take? Are you a car club operator or user? Speak up and blog your opinion!