City CarShare

City CarShare
Officially launched in March 2001, City CarShare is a nonprofit San Francisco Bay Area car share organization.
Brief History of City CarShare
City CarShare was founded in 1999 in San Francisco by three urban and transportation advocates. Their goal was to bring the established international concept of car sharing to the Bay Area to address the negative impacts on the area's urban communities due to an over-reliance on individual automobile ownership. Their goal was to reduce car usage, car ownership, congestion, and poor land use while improving the environment and quality of life in the Bay Area.
Over the next 2 years, founders Gabriel Metcalf (now Executive Director of SPUR), Elizabeth Sullivan and Kate White (now Executive Director of Urban Land Institute, San Francisco) developed the concept, and worked with local community groups to gain support and raise funds to implement car sharing. In 2001, City CarShare introduced its services to San Francisco with 6 green Volkswagen Beetles. City CarShare expanded services through a combination of grants, donations, and member fees and usage.
The founders believed that a nonprofit business model was needed to ensure that car sharing was sustainable without losing its focus on environmental and social improvements. Since car sharing is part of the local transportation network, the founders knew that it contributed to the public good and would require strong public and community support to be successful. They also believed that car sharing would have difficulty maintaining its mission if faced with business decision that required it to put profit before purpose. This approach helped create an efficient, locally based operating organization that gained significant support from city government, community groups, and individual members.
Today, City CarShare is one of the largest nonprofit car sharing organizations in the USA. With over 12,000 members in the Bay Area, it serves the communities of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Daly City, Alameda and El Cerrito. Now with hundreds of vehicles and locations, City CarShare has built strong relationships with the City of San Francisco, City of Berkeley, BART, UC Berkeley and UC, San Francisco, SPUR, the San Francisco Bike Coalition, the Housing Action Coalition and many other transportation and community groups.
In 2004, City CarShare established an innovative program with the City of Berkeley, to replace part of its City fleet with City CarShare vehicles. This ‘semi-dedicated fleet’ program helped Berkeley save hundreds of thousands of dollars by ridding itself of the cost and maintenance of many fleet cars by replacing them with a few car share vehicles. During the business day, these cars are dedicated for use by city employees. During evenings and on weekends, these cars are available to all City CarShare members.
Over the years, City CarShare has actively helped start other nonprofit car sharing organizations. Based on a mandate to help expand car sharing in the USA, City CarShare developed the authoritative guide, “Bringing Car Sharing To Your Community”. This ‘how to’ guide, along with direct staff support, helped initiate car sharing organizations in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Austin and other locations. City CarShare continues to support other car sharing efforts and remains focused on serving its community and members.
Car Share Code of Ethics
In August 2008 City CarShare was one of the 9 signatories of the North American Car Share Industry's Code of Ethics
Reports and Studies
Institute of Urban and Regional Development:
Nelson Nygaard, Carsharing and Unbundled Parking Best Practices Guide
City CarShare's Mission
"To improve the environment and quality of life in our communities by promoting innovative, socially responsible mobility options. By providing car sharing, and linking it to other mobility options, we will reduce automobile dependence and have a measurable impact in the way our communities live, breath, work, and play."
What is Car Sharing?
Car sharing is a service that provides members with 24/7 hourly access to an un-staffed fleet of conveniently located vehicles. Gas, insurance and maintenance are always included with the service. Members pay membership dues and usage fees, which include an hourly and for some providers, a mileage fee as well.

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