Re: Carsharing
From: Jack Salmon (2salmonearthlink.net)
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2018 10:13:54 -0800 (PST)
Morgan Frost, Vashon. (We didn’t know Vashon had a cohousing group!  Please 
tell me more about yourselves). 

Port Townsend is too small for Lyft/Uber to work efficiently and our taxi 
service is minimal.  Quimper Village does have community cars — 2.5 cars, we 
might say.  The QV Limo is a golf cart which all can use, a four seater for 
which we built a back-seat strap-on freight holder.  Very handy for a sack of 
fertilizer and the like as well as for people with disability issues.

When we formed about two years ago, two members donated cars to the community.  
QV owns them, pays the insurance and maintenance.  A small team (Motorheads) 
manages them.  We don’t have a website for the cars.  A sign up sheet in the 
Common House (with keys) and a glove box record book for mileage, expense 
receipts, etc. has worked well.  For the first six months we simply kept 
records to see what pattern might emerge.  Now, once a quarter our treasurer 
checks the books and refunds gas or other expenses to members, and sends them a 
bill for mileage.

One car is a Ford Explorer SUV, which people tend to use mostly for longer 
trips (e.g., Seattle airport) or for group grocery shopping.  The second is a 
Ford Ranger pickup, very handy for hauling furniture, lumber, etc. 

We find some people use a community car fairly regularly; others never.  So far 
the total mileage per car per year hasn’t broken into four digits.  In another 
year or so we’ll decide whether to keep two or which one to discard.  

Hope this helps your decision-making.   Jack

On Dec 13, 2018, at 3:16 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org wrote:

Have any communities setup a structured carsharing program? Perhaps you sign up 
for using a car in advance with a Google calendar, a website, a physical 
sign-up list in the glove compartment or the common house, an app, etc.


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