City hopes Flexcar can ease traffic, parking problems
By JOHN F. MULLER Special to the Daily Press
DOWNTOWN — Officials hope Santa Monica can help dispel the old adage that everybody in Los Angeles needs to own a car to survive.
A company that rents cars at an hourly rate launched its first station based in a residential building on Wednesday in downtown, and city officials were on hand.
Flexcar members can walk up to the hybrid sedan after making a reservation — for now, there’s just one car — and press their card against the rear windshield to unlock the doors automatically. Inside are car keys and a gas card. Members can drive starting at $10 an hour.
City Planning Commissioner Terry O’Day said he supported Flexcar because of the potential environmental benefits it could bring to Santa Monica. City Council members Pam O’Connor and Robert Holbrook also expressed their support.
“We have a comprehensive set of goals for Santa Monicans to reduce their environmental footprint,” O’Day said. “In particular, reducing vehicle ownership of our citizens by 10 percent is one of our goals. Flexcar is a way to help us get there.”
Lance Ayrault, Flexcar president and CEO, said the company’s growth in Santa Monica and the Los Angeles area could take a huge bite out of traffic, parking and pollution problems. The Seattle-based Flexcar was inspired in 1999 by earlier European models.
“The European statistics are very clear,” Ayrault said. “Any single car placed in share-car usage tends to eliminate six vehicles from circulating on any given day. So... if we can build a fleet of 100 vehicles (in the Los Angeles area), that’s 600 vehicles that don’t have to drive around Los Angeles. Go to 1,000 vehicles, and you start to see the impact.”
Ayrault said that Flexcar was designed to reduce traffic, pollution and car operating costs. Flexcar offers members the use of vehicles stationed throughout Santa Monica, Los Angeles and 18 other cities around the country for a $25 annual payment and additional usage-based payments around $10 an hour depending on the plan. In the Los Angeles area, Flexcar has become most popular in Hollywood, Ayrault said.
The $10 base rate — which goes up depending on the plan and mileage — covers the cost of the car, gas, insurance and maintenance. The company has accumulated over 20,000 members and 400 vehicles nationwide, with 30 of those vehicles in the Los Angeles area. The new location at 1535 Sixth St. will use only hybrid vehicles.
The residential location of Flexcar’s new station resulted from its new partnership with JSM Construction. Craig Jones, JSM president, said that the partnership would allow his company to promote “smart growth” and provide JSM’s apartments with additional amenities.
“We are working hand in hand with the City of Santa Monica Planning Commission and City Council to study whether or not we can actually reduce parking requirements in the area and actually provide more opportunities for a company like Flexcar but still provide the tenant, the consumer, the ability to get into a car and drive somewhere,” Jones said.
Ayrault stressed that Flexcar was only a part of the solution to the greater problem of transportation in Santa Monica and the Los Angeles area.
“This is not the solution to transportation in Los Angeles,” he said. “This is a solution that fits into a whole continuum of transportation alternatives. You can walk, you can ride a bike, you can take a bus, you can take a Flexcar, you can take a taxi... This is a solution that fits very nicely into certain lives — people who elect to live in densely populated urban areas like these properties around here.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 24, 2004. Read the original PDF.