Green Matters
I-GO is dedicated to improving the environmental quality of the Chicago region by promoting a Low Carbon Diet.
While I-GO attracts customers because of its convenience, flexibility, and economy, I-GO also produces high social returns. Cars can have serious deleterious societal impacts, particularly in large urban areas. These impacts include pollution, traffic congestion, and large public expenditures on highway construction and maintenance, often to the exclusion of investment in public transportation. Cars also are expensive to own and operate, especially for people with moderate incomes. Car sharing reduces the individual and the societal costs of driving.
Reduced Driving
I-GO has conducted its own research from its four years of operation and has found profound results:
- Each I-GO car replaces 17 cars on the road
- 25% increasing their walking.
- 14.5% increased their biking.
- 17.6% increased their public transit usage.
- 45.9% gave up or postponed purchase of a vehicle or considered selling a vehicle because of joining I-GO.
- Members report driving only 9.6 miles per week, or 500 miles per year, whereas the typical car owner in Chicago drives 10,000 miles per year.
- Of those who did not own a car at the time of orientation, 56% postponed buying a car because of I-GO or gave up a car prior to joining I-GO.
The finding that car sharing can significantly reduces car usage has attracted considerable interest nationally among transportation planners and policymakers. Car sharing is the only program that has succeeded in reducing car ownership by such a significant amount. Reduced driving has multiple benefits, including less road congestion and pollution.
Reduced Traffic Congestion
The yearly Texas Transportation Institute’s Mobility Report has consistently placed Chicago among the worst five areas for congestion since the Institute began doing their annual study. Drivers in northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana spent an average of 56 hours in traffic delays in 2002 (the latest year for which there is information) up from 50 hours of delays in 2001. The cost of congestion to the Chicago region was $4.2 billion or $985 per traveler in time and gasoline.
Lower Individual Costs of Car Ownership
A recent study by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) demonstrated that 18% of every dollar spent by the average American family is devoted to transportation. The bulk of this expenditure, almost 98%, is for the purchase, operation, and maintenance of automobiles. In some cities, the monthly expense for car ownership exceeds that for housing. For the poorest families, this cost can exceed one-third of after-tax income. In 2005, Chicago was 3rd in the report of most congested regions. You can find the actual numbers here: http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/report.
Reduce Transportation Costs for Low-to-Moderate Income Families
In the City of Chicago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey from 2003-2004 estimates that the average car owner spends $7512 per year in vehicle-related expenses. For many, this is just an unpleasant reality and a reduction of disposable income. For the disadvantaged, it can be an impediment to a reasonable quality-of-life. The economic impact of the growth in car ownership cannot be underestimated. From 1960 through 1999, outstanding credit for automobile purchases increased by 440 percent or 3.7 times faster than did transportation costs in the same period. During that period the portion of households owning at least one car rose from 74 to 91 percent while those owning at least two cars increased from 15 to 59 percent. Although not definitively causally related, the savings rate dropped from 7.5 percent to 2.2 percent over this time. A typical I-GO member spends about $2,520 per year. A number of studies in urban settings have shown that auto owners can achieve considerable savings by replacing a vehicle driven less than 6,000 miles per year with a car sharing membership. Car sharing participants can gain access vehicles parked within easy walking distance of their homes virtually whenever they want it, enjoying almost all of the convenience of owning a car, but paying only for the amount that they actually use it.
Promote Physical Activity, Healthy Neighborhoods and Healthy Neighbors
Car sharing encourages walking because it “imposes some scheduling and accessibility constraints” and it externalizes the real incremental costs associated with transportation choice. One might add that car sharing membership brings to the surface the incremental benefits of transportation choice including personal health benefits. I-GO surveys show that one of these benefits to be heightened levels of walking among members. While the personal savings and environmental benefits of car sharing are well documented and advertised, the personal health benefits of the increasingly popular travel option, in the form of increased levels of walking, have been less fully explored. About half of Americans do not meet the Surgeon General’s recommendation of at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day. The evidence suggests that one of the hidden benefits of car sharing could be help achieving this minimum health recommendation.
