Press Releases

For Immediate Release

Station Car and Car-Sharing Workshop

MTC Hosts Program

CONTACT:

Marjorie Blackwell
510.464.7884

Rod McMillan
510.817.5860

OAKLAND, Calif., Feb. 2, 1999. . . Station-car and car-sharing programs – two creative forms of transportation emerging in the U.S. and Europe – will be discussed at a public workshop sponsored by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) on Monday, Feb. 8, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., at the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 101 8th Street, Oakland.

Station cars are small, low-emission vehicles driven to and from transit stations by transit riders. While away from the stations, the cars can be used for any type of short trip and may be used by several "car renters" during the course of a day. Car-sharing programs are similar, except that in addition to serving as links to mass transit stations, shared cars are located at staging areas throughout neighborhoods. The pool of shared cars can include any type of vehicles, from small electric cars to vans that are rented on an "on-demand" basis.

Workshop speakers will include representatives from BART who will discuss BART's efforts to attract rental car firms to operate station car services at four BART stations, and Susan Shaheen of the University of California, Davis, who will discuss the Smart CarLink car-sharing project being developed with U.C. Davis, BART, Honda and Lawrence Livermore Lab.

Other workshop speakers include: Conrad Wagner, founder of Mobility Car Sharing in Switzerland, which operates over 1,000 vehicles in 700 Swiss locations; Eileen Kadesh, of King County Metro in Seattle, who is developing a car-sharing program in metropolitan Seattle; Dr. Martin J. Bernard III, executive director of the National Station Car Association; and Gabriel Metcalf of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), who will describe efforts to start a car- sharing program in San Francisco.

Lawrence D. Dahms, MTC executive director, said, "Station cars and car-sharing programs are interesting concepts in that they link public transit and private car ownership, and they generate benefits for travelers, transportation providers, entrepreneurs, communities and the environment. We are pleased to be sponsoring a forum that highlights the potential for these programs in the Bay Area."

For reservations and more information on the workshop, call Debbie Scarborough at 510.464.7755.

MTC is the transportation planning, coordinating and financing agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

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