Does anyone know the nature of the $960 in permits? Is this just a parking permit that would be available to anyone that wanted to park their car in a downtown parking spot for the year?

How many people are ok with government being involved at this lever in economic activity? A permit is required to park a rental car on a public street in Mountain View? $240 per year tax for each car?

Ok, people. Can you spell LIBERTY? Can you define it? If you live in a city in which you have to have a permit for everything, what on Earth do you mean when you say that you live in freedom?

What kind of world are we passing on to the generations that will come after us? A world in which the word LIBERTY means nothing at all?

The corrupt Mountain View Municipal Corporation should have no say whatsoever in whether someone provides you with car sharing. The corrupt Mountain View Municipal Corporation should not be taking a cut of each and every dollar of economic value that is created within this city.

This is not LIBERTY. It is PLUTOCRACY. Wake up, people! You are fish in a stocked lake. This lake (Mountain View) is not operated for your benefit. It is operated for the benefit of the unionized police officers and other government employees and other economic and political interests who determine what the evil Mountain View Municipal Corporation does. Don't be fooled by the flags along Castro. This city is not a part of the United States of America. It is a renegade city, the most corrupt city in the state of California.

" Is this just a parking permit that would be available to anyone that wanted to park their car in a downtown parking spot for the year?"

I guess if you allow anyone to use your car and can get 5-20 cars off the road by doing so, then yah, I bet the city would be open to hearing from just about anybody on that.

What does "remove five to 20 single occupancy vehicles from the road" mean? Obviously if people who drive occasionally use Zipcar rather than owning their own car, fewer vehicles need to be parked. Is the report also saying that having Zipcar available makes people drive less? I suppose because once they've given up their own car, driving's not as much on their mind, not as convenient, and has a more obvious cost per use? If so, it seems like Zipcar's losing business because their service isn't as attractive as it could be. Or maybe it's that people who would drive here from another city instead take public transit then Zipcar within the city, so they're still taking the same number of driving trips but going less far?

Even if it doesn't reduce driving, this sounds good both for people who use Zipcar and those of us who will just use those newly-freed parking spaces.

My wife and I would be tempted to ditch one of our cars if there were Zipcars in our neighborhood. They probably need more density than Monta Loma has for the economics to make sense, though.

gcoladon: There's a Mercury News article with details on that. The $240/year/space Zipcar will pay is the same as a regular parking permit. The only difference is that they'll get a particular space reserved, while I imagine other permit-holders just have a block of spaces that might be oversold.

I'm willing tp give this a try- my own car has poor milage, so it is seldom driven. Please offer some details on how to sign in as a member. Thank you.

since there are so many rich people in this area nowadays, I bet those 4 zipcars are going to be BMW 7 series or Lamborghinis.

Information on Zip Car (how to sign up, reserve a car, etc.) for anthodyd.

Web Link

Hey Wo\'O Ideafarm

Maybe you need to cool your jets and start by actually reading the article? It states clearly that these are spaces in city owned lots and garages, and I would assume it would be necessary for some level of coordination in order to have specific spots reserved...

Yes, Robert, I stand corrected. Thank you. After my hasty, ill conceived post, I did the math and wanted to delete my own post, but could not.

It seems like a great idea for Mountain View to try. A while back I looked into getting rid of our second car which is used only once a week and using Zip Car. At the time the nearest zip car was on the Stanford Campus, now it's withing walking distance of my house. I plan to look into joining zip car.

Great that the city is experimenting with this. With the high density housing in the downtown area and the Cal Train station nearby, I would expect these cars would offer great commute and occasional car use alternatives for many hundreds of people.