The number of floating car share vehicles flowing onto Capitol Hill at night and flowing right back off in the morning has dropped this summer. BMW abruptly pulled the plug on ReachNow last week.
Following a splashy Capitol Hill launch party in spring of 2016, the Mini Coopers and BMWs became part of the weird, wild, and somewhat reliable transportation options provided by the smartphone-driven era of car, bike, scooter, etc. sharing in Seattle.
The service’s abrupt cancelation leaves drivers in the Pacific Northwest turning to the remaining providers including Daimler’s Car2go. In February, CHS reported on bike share company Lime expanding into the car business in Seattle to join the traffic jam of options. Other car share options in Seattle include the old school, fixed-space Zipcar and Getaround, a startup that sounds like the “Airbnb” of motor vehicles.
The numbers show that share services are hugely popular in Seattle and are also contributing to the city’s clogged streets with around 40,000 motor vehicle rides a day starting in downtown, Belltown, South Lake Union, and on Capitol Hill.
People like cars, and Seattle hates that. I used to walk downtown to work but now being over 65 with arthritic knees it’s impossible. So hate on me for liking cars too. Not everyone can take the train to the airport. The rental cars are fabulous for that. Most of the hip transportation ideas don’t suit the elderly.
I’m glad that your knees allow you to drive. How much do you pay for parking every time you visit downtown?
Car2go will be absorbing ReachNow’s cars in the near future. It’s essentially a merger between the Daimler and BMW services.
I switch over to Getaround and Lime and am loving them. Using Getaround for the longterm stuff and Lime for when I need to get to Fremont. (Why is it so hard to get to Fremont from the Hill?!)
The BMW/Mercedes car sharing is too expensive and can’t compete with Lyft or LimePod. ZipCar is also expensive for longer trips now that Budget has closed the local Seattle office and lacks customer service like an old school rental agency.
LimePod and Car2Go/ShareNow (as it’s now called) are essentially identical. I compared the two for a hiking trip last week and both charged $55 for a 4 hour rental.