Introducing Bicycle Sharing

Linnea Noreen
Car-sharing just got a one-up. Enter Velib, the Parisian bike-sharing program.
Zipcar (or should I say Flexcar?!) is so last year. The latest and greatest is bike-swapping – better for your health, the environment, cheaper and vastly more flexible. With the expansion of the Burke-Gilman Trail and Bike Master Plan approval, maybe Seattle is the place to start the trend, State-side?
It works like car-sharing… you pay roughly $30 for a year membership, but unlike its carbon-depended cousin, you get 30 minutes free for every trip using Velib. It is then incrementally a dollar (roughly) an hour--$1 for the first hour, $2 for the second hour-- the idea is to avoid permanent “check-outs”. Bikes are available every 300 meters (few hundred feet), and are interchangable. If you want to extend the time, you can swap it with one down the road, and the clock restarts. Clever, huh?
In Seattle, the idea would be to pair the bike system with public transit – have many pick-up locations in urban neighborhoods and suburban developments, where people can grab and go (in this case a shared bike). They ride to the park and ride, and hop on transit. After work, they hop off transit, grab one of the many bikes waiting and ride it back to neighborhood or suburban bliss.
It's really quite dreamy, and a great addition to our current transit system. Instead of wondering about whether the park and ride will be full, or how you’re going to walk the extra 2 miles to your friend’s house, you just grab a bike at the Transit Center. Even better, the system in Paris was entirely self-funded through advertising contracts. Image: a huge boon to mobility and convenience, with no taxpayer money. What a steal!

Source Cascadia Prospectus

Amgen pays employees to leave their cars at home

Paid for not taking the car to work
Region's best job sites for commuters listed

By ANDREA JAMES
P-I REPORTER

Even on Seattle's drizzliest, chilliest mornings, Daniel Hirschstein leaves his new sports car in the garage and pedals through train yards and past petroleum tanks down a narrow industrial path to his lab at Amgen Inc.

COMMUTING HABITS


SeattlePI.com has asked readers periodically about their commute-to-work habits through the "daily poll" feature on the home page. Results are not scientific:
- Oct. 18, 2006
- March 7, 2002
- May 18, 2001

"I think that there's too many cars on the road as it is," said the 47-year-old research scientist. "I just came back from L.A., and believe me, I'd hate to see our city turn into something like that, traffic-wise."

His company agrees. That's why every time Hirschstein swings his leg over the bicycle saddle, the biotechnology firm pays him to do it.

Amgen, along with 248 other Puget Sound-area employers, was named a best workplace for commuters today by a coalition led by the Environmental Protection Agency, local non-profits and transit organizations.

Joe Parsons, who cycles to work at Amgen from his home on Capitol Hill, puts his bike away in the garage. A coalition of business and government organizations is releasing the first annual list of the Puget Sound's Best Workplaces for Commuters. The list spotlights 249 employers and two districts offering superior commuter benefits to 449,600 employees in the Puget Sound area.

The coalition wants benefits such as bus passes and free ferry rides to become as common as health insurance and 401(k) accounts.

Three-quarters of Seattle-area commuters, or 1.13 million people, drove to work alone last year, according to the Census Bureau. If Seattle's population grows as predicted, more than 25,000 extra parking spaces will be needed downtown in the next quarter century, said Steve Gerritson, executive director of Commuter Challenge, a Seattle-based non-profit and coalition member.

"That just isn't going to happen. We don't have the space," he said. "We really have to make some effort here to get people out of their cars."

Amgen spends slightly more than $1 million per year encouraging the 800 employees at its Interbay campus and 200 in Bothell to bike, car pool, take the bus or share a van. That averages $1,000 per employee. The company provides a smorgasbord of free commuter goodies: showers and lockers, onsite bike tune-ups, two bike shelters, ferry and bus rides, emergency cab rides, Flexcars for trips to the dentist and meetings, and a shuttle every 15 minutes to downtown.

The company gives $50 gift certificates monthly to everyone who bikes, walks or is dropped off. They are redeemable at various stores, including outdoor gear retailer REI. Car poolers get $25 gift certificates. "People love that REI one," said Amgen spokeswoman Carol Pawlak. "Seattle certainly has a traffic problem and this is a way around it."

Meanwhile, employees who drive pay $65 a month to park. As a result, two-thirds arrive at work via some method other than driving alone, and 10 percent ride bikes, says Jan Law, who works full time as Amgen's employee transportation coordinator.

Fewer than 1 percent of corporations nationwide qualify as a best workplace for commuters, according to the EPA, which has previously ranked Fortune 500 companies but today recognized Puget Sound employers specifically for the first time.

Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks and the cities of Issaquah, Redmond, Renton and Tukwila made the list. Seattle did not.

"If you just want to look at our core downtown businesses, we would be on it," said Gregg Hirakawa, spokesman for Seattle's Department of Transportation. But many people who work in the city's outlying field offices keep irregular hours and must drive, he said.

To qualify for the list, a business must:

# Employ someone to tell employees about commuter benefits.

# Provide a way for employees to get home in an emergency.

# Offer a key commuter benefit, such as a monthly transit subsidy or a telecommuting program.

# Offer at least three supporting benefits, such as incentives, showers or dry cleaning.

Also, at least 14 percent of employees must participate, says Puget Sound's Best Workplaces for Commuters Coalition.

"You can't force your employees to take the bus or to car pool," Commuter Challenge's Gerritson said. "They may be in locations where public transport doesn't operate."

About 12 percent of Puget Sound's work force car pools and about 23 percent of King County companies have telework programs allowing employees to work from home a couple of times per month, Gerritson said.

It's hard to get people out of cars because they equate wheels with necessity, Gerritson said. Immigrants seem to be leading the change in commuting habits nationally, representing 40 percent of people in large car pools, according to a report this week by The National Academies.

While not every company can afford $1,000 per head like Amgen, even minor benefits have big impacts on the number of cars on the road, Gerritson said. For example, if every company in Puget Sound allowed employees to telecommute one day per week, traffic would drop approximately 20 percent, he said.

Smaller businesses can buy FlexPasses from the Urban Mobility Group, a non-profit run by the Downtown Seattle Association, King County Metro and the city of Seattle. More than 160 small downtown businesses have purchased the passes, said Carrie Blanco, the group's director.

The cost is $285 per year per employee and businesses must buy one for every full-time employee, or none at all, she said.

As an incentive for businesses, the federal and state governments offer tax deductions for transit subsidies. But many Seattle-area businesses and commuters don't shun cars to enhance the bottom line, said Janis Hastings, an associate director in EPA's Seattle regional office.

"People look beyond the fact that it's saving them money here," she said. "Hopefully people are connecting it with saving the environment."

BEST WORKPLACES FOR COMMUTERS

The best workplaces for commuters, according to Puget Sound’s Best Workplaces for Commuters Coalition:

4culture, Seattle
5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle
Advanced Computer Solutions Ltd., Seattle
Aetna, Seattle
Alaska Airlines, Seattle
Alliance Data Systems, Seattle
American Heart Association, Seattle
Amgen, Seattle
Amicus Law Group,PC, Seattle
Anchor Environmental, LLC, Seattle
AttachmateWRQ, Seattle
Attenex Corp., Seattle
Badgley Phelps & Bell, Seattle
Badgley-Mullins Law Group,PLLC, Seattle
Barry Kaimakis DDS, Seattle
Benefit Administation Co., Seattle
Berger/Abam Engineers Inc., Seattle
BHC Consultants, Seattle
Black Lowe & Graham,PLLC, Seattle
Blue Frog Mobile, Seattle
Brown and Caldwell, Seattle
Building Owners and Managers Association, Seattle
Callison Architecture Inc., Seattle
Cancer Research & Biostatistics, Seattle
Capital One, Federal Way
Carter and Burgess, Seattle
Cascade Land Conservancy, Seattle
Cascade Natural Gas Corp., Seattle
Cascadia Law Group, Seattle
CB Richard Ellis, Seattle
CBRE Melody, Seattle
Century Square, Seattle
Chef’n, Seattle
Chicago Title Insurance Co., Seattle
Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center, Seattle
Christensen O’Connor Johnson Kindness PLLC, Seattle
Cigna, Seattle
City of Bellevue
City of Issaquah
City of Redmond
City of Renton
City of Tacoma - Public Works/Environmental Services
City of Tukwila
Clausen Law Firm PLLC, Seattle
ClearPoint, Seattle
CleverSet Inc., Seattle
Coldwater Creek, Seattle
Collins Woerman, Seattle
Columbia Bank, Seattle
Columbia Tower Club, Seattle
Commerce Bank of Washington, Seattle
Community Transit, Everett
Continental Reporting Service Inc., Seattle
Corr Cronin Baumgardner & Preece LLP, Seattle
Cosse International Securities, Seattle
Coughlin Porter Lundeen, Seattle
Cowan Miller & Lederman, Seattle
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Seattle
DiMartino Associates, Seattle
Discovery Institute, Seattle
DKS Associates, Seattle
Downtown Seattle Association, Seattle
Dr. Kegel’s Office, Seattle
Easter Seals Little Eagles, Seattle
Ecology & Environment Inc., Seattle
Eddie Bauer, Redmond
Ederer Investment Co., Seattle
EDS, Federal Way
Entranco Inc., Bellevue
EnviroIssues, Seattle
eProject, Seattle
ERA Care Communities, Seattle
EvergreenBank, Seattle
Exbiblio, Seattle
Expedia Inc., Bellevue
Federal Aviation Administration - Northwest Mountain Region, Renton
FileNet Corp., Kirkland
Financial Security Group, Seattle
First Choice Health, Seattle
Flexcar - Seattle, Seattle
Foote Cone & Belding, Seattle
Fox’s Gem Shop, Seattle
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle
Frontier Bank, Seattle
Genie Industries, Redmond
Genworth Financial, Seattle
Geomatrix Consultants Inc., Seattle
Global Energy Concepts, LLC, Seattle
GM Nameplate, Seattle
Goodrich Aviation Technical Services Inc., Everett
Gordon & Polscer, L.L.C., Seattle
Greater Redmond TMA, Redmond
Green Tree Childcare Center, Seattle
Greenfield Advisors LLC, Seattle
Group Health Cooperative, Seattle
Guido Perla Associates, Seattle
Hamlin and Associates, Seattle
Harbor Properties, Seattle
Harborview Medical Center, Seattle
Heller Ehrman LLP, Seattle
Heritage House at the Market, Seattle
Hewitt Architects, Seattle
Holland America Line, Seattle
Honeywell, Redmond
Integrated Benefits, Seattle
Intel Corp., DuPont
Intercontinental Insurance Services, Seattle
Jones & Jones Architects & Landscape Architects Ltd., Seattle
Joshua Green Corp., Seattle
Kinetic Books, Seattle
King County Bar Association, Seattle
Korry Electronics, Seattle
KPFF Consulting Engineers, Seattle
Laidlaw Transit, Seattle
Laird Norton Tyee, Seattle
Legal Foundation of Washington, Seattle
LeGros Buchanan & Paul, Seattle
LeSourd & Patten, P.S., Seattle
Levy von Beck & Associates, P.S., Seattle
Linville Ursich, PLLC, Seattle
LMN Architects, Seattle
Makers Architecture and Urban Design, Seattle
Mattei Companies LLC, Seattle
McIntyre & Barns, PLLC, Seattle
Microsoft Corp., Redmond
Mikkelborg Broz Wells & Fryer, Seattle
Minor & James Medical Clinic, Seattle
Montgomery Purdue Blankinship & Austin,PLLC, Seattle
Morisset, Schlosser, Jozwiak & McGaw, Seattle
Nature Conservancy, Seattle
Neuhaus Chocolates, Seattle
Nielsen Shields PLLC, Seattle
Nintendo of America Inc., Redmond
Nordstrom Inc., Seattle
Northwest Airlines Inc., Seattle
Northwest Defenders Association, Seattle
Nyhus Communications LLC, Seattle
O’Connor Consulting Group, LLC, Seattle
Office Lease, Seattle
Ogden Murphy Wallace, PLLC, Seattle
OMD, Seattle
Open Interface North America, Seattle
Oracle Corp. USA, Bellevue
Otak, Seattle
Overlake Hospital Medical Center, Bellevue
PACCAR Inc., Bellevue
Paladino & Company Inc., Seattle
Par3 Communications, Seattle
Paragon Investment Management, Seattle
Parametrix Inc., Kirkland
Parker Services Inc., Seattle
Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc., Seattle
Patrick A. Fleege, DDS, Seattle
Philips Medical Systems/Philips Ultrasound, Bothell
Pierce Transit, Lakewood
Pogo Linux Inc., Seattle
Porter, Kohli & LeMaster, P.S., Seattle
Premera Blue Cross, Mountlake Terrace
Princess Tours, Seattle
ProBusiness Services of Washington, Bothell
Program for Appropriate Technology in Health - PATH, Seattle
PRR, Seattle
Puget Sound Business Journal, Seattle
Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, Seattle
Puget Sound Regional Council, Seattle
R.W. Beck, Seattle
RA Bench, Seattle
Rafel Manville, Seattle
REI, Kent
Ridolfi, Seattle
Rogers & Norman Inc., Seattle
Romax Inc., Seattle
Ross & Associates Environmental Consulting Ltd., Seattle
Russell Investment Group, Tacoma
Mellon Analytical Services, Tacoma
Safeco Insurance, Redmond
Sasquatch Books, Seattle
Savitt & Bruce LLP, Seattle
Schlosser Geographic Systems, Seattle
Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Seattle
Seattle Chapter 13, Seattle
Seattle Infant Development Center, Seattle
Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, Seattle
Seattle-Northwest Securities Corp., Seattle
Security Properties, Seattle
Seed IP Law Group,PLLC, Seattle
Simpson Tacoma Kraft Co., Tacoma
SMR Architects, Seattle
Snohomish County, Everett
Soha & Lang, P.S., Seattle
Spacelabs Healthcare, Issaquah
Sparling, Seattle
Sprague Israel Giles Inc., Seattle
Starbucks Coffee Co., Seattle
State Farm Insurance, Dupont
Stevens Pass Ski Area, Skykomish
Stewart Title Guaranty, Seattle
Swedish Medical Center, Seattle
Symetra Financial, Bellevue
Tacoma Public Utilities, Tacoma
The Boeing Co., Everett
The Myers Associates, PC, Seattle
The Seattle Foundation, Seattle
Therapeutic Associates, Seattle
Thomas S. Maring MD, Seattle
TKG Consulting Engineers, Seattle
Trillium Publishing, Seattle
U. S. Bank, Seattle
U.S. Department of Labor, Seattle
U.S. EPA Region 10, Seattle
Unico Properties Inc., Seattle
University of Washington, Seattle
University Village, Seattle
USI Northwest, Seattle
UW Physicians Network, Seattle
Verdiem Corp., Seattle
Verizon - Washington, Everett
Verizon Wireless, Bellevue
Visions Northwest, Seattle
Vulcan Inc., Seattle
Wachovia LLC, Seattle
Washington Appellate Project, Seattle
Washington Capital Management, Seattle
Washington Community Reinvestment Association, Seattle
Washington Court of Appeals, Seattle
Washington Department of Social and Health Service, Seattle
Washington Mutual, Bothell
Washington Protection Advocacy System, Seattle
Washington State Attorney General’s Office, Seattle
Washington State Bar Association, Seattle
Washington State Department of Ecology, Olympia
Washington State Department of Human Rights Commission, Seattle
Washington State Department of Social & Health Services, Olympia
Washington State Department of Transportation, Olympia
Washington State Department of Transportation, Seattle
Washington State Department of Transportation, Tumwater
Wechsler Becker LLP, Seattle
Weyerhaeuser Co., Federal Way
WhitePages.com, Seattle
Widemile, Seattle
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC, Seattle
Winterbauer & Diamond PLLC, Seattle
Wohlman & Toschi Inc., Seattle
Wurts & Associates, Seattle
Yarmuth Wilson Calfo, PLLC, Seattle
Zillow Inc., Seattle
Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, Seattle
ZymoGenetics Inc., Seattle6

Flexcar merges with Zipcar to create car sharing giant

Seattle's Flexcar merges with rival Zipcar

By Dominic Gates

Seattle Times staff reporter
october 31 07



The nation's largest urban car-sharing company, Cambridge, Mass.-based Zipcar, is absorbing Seattle-based Flexcar in a move that could hasten the spread of a business whose rapid growth relies on lifestyle marketing as much as its promise to save people money.

Executives said Tuesday the two will combine by week's end to create a company three times the size of Flexcar, with more than 5,000 vehicles and 180,000 subscribers in 48 cities. Terms of the merger were not disclosed.

The merged company will keep the Zipcar name and headquarters.

Zipcar's chief executive, former Seattle-based Boeing engineer Scott Griffith, will be chairman and CEO. Flexcar CEO Mark Norman becomes president and chief operating officer.

The two companies have "pioneered a very interesting big idea," said Griffith. "This deal accelerates that big idea into the mainstream."

The idea is that people who only occasionally need a car pay a membership fee to have access to cars positioned at fixed locations, typically around downtown or a university campus.

Cars can be reserved online in advance and are dropped off at the pickup location after use.

Members typically may use mass transit for work commutes, yet have access to a car when needed without the investment in buying, owning and maintaining their own vehicle.

Flexcar users in Seattle pay an annual $35 membership fee, then have access to cars at a rate of $10 an hour.

Griffith said surveys of its members indicate they save about $5,000 per year by using Flexcar rather than owning a vehicle.

The companies also market themselves as environmentally responsible, by making mass transit a viable option most of the time and reducing unnecessary car trips. Flexcar has 89 hybrid vehicles in its 350-car Seattle fleet.

"More and more people are interested in a sustainable lifestyle and also a hassle-free lifestyle," Griffith said. "We really see it as a lifestyle choice for urban dwellers."

advertising

Flexcar's Norman said the business model for both companies — each private and founded in 1999 — has already proved profitable in their more established markets.

But overall corporate profitability has been pushed out, he said, because both have "invested aggressively in growth," producing "double- and triple-digit" increases in revenue and membership.

"New markets ... take a little while to get ramped up and profitable," Norman said. He would not disclose the firms' revenues.

Griffith said Zipcar has grown more than 100 percent for the last three years running. He estimates the potential membership in North America at between 1.5 million and 2 million, compared with a total car-sharing membership base of about 200,000 today.

Flexcar — which started in Seattle and has more than 20,000 members here — has been controlled since 2005 by Revolution, an investment firm owned by ex-AOL Chairman Steve Case.

Some jobs may be lost in Seattle as the headquarters moves to the Boston area.

"As with any merger, there will be some impacts to the staff," said Flexcar spokesman John Williams. "Flexcar will be communicating those changes directly with its employees. Seattle ... will be a significant focus for the company going forward."

Flexcar is strongest on the West Coast. Zipcar operates mostly in the East, as well as in London, Vancouver, B.C., and Toronto.

In two overlapping markets, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., the combined fleets will offer more cars and more locations to members.

"When we acquired Flexcar in 2005, our goal was to bring car sharing to more people in more places," Case said in a statement. "The Zipcar merger will accelerate this effort."

The merged company will use the Zipcar technology, which provides smartcards for unlocking the cars, as well as mobile access to the reservation system via cellphones and BlackBerrys.

Once the companies' systems are integrated, members who travel to other cities with the service will have seamless access to the combined network of vehicles. Griffith said the integration will be complete by the middle of next year.

Griffith said Zipcar likely won't spend huge amounts on a rebranding campaign in Flexcar cities like Seattle.

Instead it will rely on word of mouth for continued growth, as well as targeted contracts with universities and big companies to provide service to students and employees on campus.

The University of Washington and the Starbucks headquarters in Sodo are already Flexcar sites, and the company is in talks with Microsoft.

Griffith said the merger deal is not subject to federal antitrust review because the value of the acquired company, Flexcar, "falls below the threshold for filing."

Susan Shaheen, transportation research director with the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said U-Haul has begun a pilot car-sharing program and that Hertz and Enterprise are looking at options.

"With the entrance of U-Haul and more daily-rental approaches by the rental-car companies, there's always an opportunity for those organizations to more aggressively enter this space," said Shaheen.

She considers the merger a strategic alliance in the face of such potential competition from traditional car-rental companies.

But Norman sees such possibilities only as validating the car-sharing concept rather than threatening competition. He sees car sharing as competing head-to-head only with car ownership.

"That's our competitor: the car that is paid for seven days a week and used for three or four," said Norman. "That kind of waste is a crying shame for consumers with affordability issues living downtown in our most desirable cities, like Seattle."

Flexcar customers must pay rental tax

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - Page updated at 05:38 PM

Flexcar must pay rental tax

By Susan Gilmore

Seattle Times staff reporter

Related

* Foes of road, transit taxes face uphill fight

Members of Flexcar, the national car-sharing company that started in Seattle, will now have to pay the state and King County car rental tax, according to the state Department of Revenue.

In an advisory, sent out in July, the Revenue Department said, "carsharing organizations are providing rental cars and are required to collect the rental car tax, along with the retail sales tax from their customers."

For the average Flexcar member, that will add about a dollar to an hourly $10 charge when Flexcar must begin to collect the 9.7 percent state and King County car-rental tax in October. Flexcar operates only in King County in Washington state. It already pays the state and local sales tax which, together with the car-rental tax, is 18.6 percent.

Flexcar spokesman John Williams said the company started operating in Seattle in 2000 and this is the first time the car-rental-tax issue has come up. "Our issue is that Flexcar is a car-sharing company, not a car rental company," he said. "Over 90 percent of the users are Seattle residents."

He said the car-rental tax, which went into effect in the state in 1993, targets visitors, and local taxpayers shouldn't be penalized for joining a car-sharing program.

Further, he said, Flexcar gets cars off the street and encourages transit use, something that should be rewarded, not punished. "This will hit members in their pocketbook," he said. "The numbers add up. These are people who already live here and already pay taxes."

Mike Gowrylow, spokesman for the Department of Revenue, said regardless of Flexcar's mission, it is a car rental business and should be taxed as one, just as any car-sharing business would be.

"We need to be collecting the tax," he said. As for it targeting local residents, Gowrylow said, there's no way to distinguish who rents cars from the state-ordered tax. He added that any company, like Flexcar, can be billed for any taxes they should have been collecting for the past three years.

The state tax is 5.9 percent and the county tax brings it up to 9.7 percent. Last year the state collected $22 million from the tax; King County collected $14 million.

According to the Department of Revenue, about 70 companies now pay the rental-car tax; the only exemptions are taxis and cars loaned to customers of auto-repair businesses.

Williams said Flexcar has about 20,000 members in King County and the new tax will be hard on the company. It is circulating a petition to state and King County lawmakers asking that Flexcar be exempt from the tax.

Flexcar could either petition the Department of Revenue for an exemption from the tax, or could ask the Washington Legislature to put an exemption into law.