‘Leave Your Car at Home’ – Zipping Around Town

‘Leave Your Car at Home’
Dispatch #2

So it has been over a week now, and I’m getting pretty good at this no car thing!  Although, I would be lying if I said that I don’t miss having complete and utter freedom that owing a car gives me.  Having said that, using Zipcar has really been an efficient life-saver that has allowed me some freedoms!

For those of you who are not familiar with Zipcar, in its basic form, it is a service that offers rental cars in high-traffic urban locations that you can rent at your convenience for a couple hours at a time.  Some of you may be familiar with “Flexcar,” which was the same idea.  The 2 companies merged a few years ago.

In Downtown Bellevue there are 5 Zipcar locations:

• 1 at Puget Sound Blood Center
• 1 at Symetra Tower
• 1 at Old Key Bank Building
• 2 at Skyline Tower

The cars that are located in Downtown Bellevue run about $9.50 an hour depending on what plan you sign up for.  The more you use it, the less the hourly rate is.  The great part about the cost per hour is that it includes gas, insurance, and wear and tear on the car (you can learn more here).  And, yes, you can rent the car for the whole day (I haven’t needed to yet).  It will cost you about $69 a day. The cars located in Downtown Bellevue are Subaru Imprezas, Scion xA’s, and Honda Civic Hybrids. In total there are about 236 cars in the greater Seattle area if you are venturing out from Downtown Bellevue.

One of the only downsides is that I sometimes felt stressed to return the car on time, but luckily you can always call their automated phone line to extend your reservation – I have done this twice now.

Compared to what I would be spending on gas and insurance this month, Zipcar presents a great value proposition to those who flirt with not having a car.  Zipcar by no means is intended to replace actually having a car, but it has done a darn good job of allowing me some freedom from public transportation or rides from friends when I need to be on my own schedule.