About 2 years ago I got rid of my whip. I just couldn't any longer justify the expense. Between rent, utilities, insurance, repairs and fuel, owning and operating a vehicle in NYC just stopped making sense (queue David Byrne). Especially since I pretty much have to take public transportation to get into work, owning an automobile became much more a luxury than a necessity. A luxury whose expense was beginning to rival my room and board.So, I made a decision. I got rid of the ol' girl. (Sniff!)
1 year ago, I made another decision.
I opened a Zipcar account.
Zipcar is a car sharing service. As long as you are 21 or older and have a valid driver's license (and a clean driving record) you can 'rent' (or more like borrow) a Zipcar.
Here's how it works:
1. Apply. It's easy. A few minutes at most.
2. Reserve. This is the best part. A car can be reserved for as little as an hour to as long as a few days from a number of locations. Not just airport locations, but from down the street, around the corner locations. Near Penn Station locations. Near Lincoln Center locations. Near the supermarket locations. And, there are a large variety of cars to chose from at a range of costs... Mazda's, Bimmer's, Mini's, Volvo's, Toyotas and VW's.... Oh my!
Here's how it works:
1. Apply. It's easy. A few minutes at most.
2. Reserve. This is the best part. A car can be reserved for as little as an hour to as long as a few days from a number of locations. Not just airport locations, but from down the street, around the corner locations. Near Penn Station locations. Near Lincoln Center locations. Near the supermarket locations. And, there are a large variety of cars to chose from at a range of costs... Mazda's, Bimmer's, Mini's, Volvo's, Toyotas and VW's.... Oh my!
3. Pick up the car. This is quite possibly the coolest part... Well one of them. Once approved, Zipcar will issue you your ZipCard. This card is used to open the automobile you have reserved. Just hold the card over the sensor in the upper right corner of the cars windshield and voila! it's opened. The keys are inside... always inside. They never leave the car.
(Not my hand)
4. Drive. If you need to fuel up, gas (in addition to insurance) is paid for by Zipcar!
As an example, one day, the 'Significant' and I decide to take a road trip upstate. I go online to http://www.zipcar.com/ and search by location. I figure the West Side of Manhattan is an ideal location to start from.
I chose a car. 'Significant' has a thing for the Mazda 3. 
This can be done just purely by location or by filtering out from the list of what Zipcar has available. I determined how long I would need the car for, and then reserved. In this case, 1 day 2 hours as we planned to do some running around and drop in on our respective peoples.
Is my 'Significant'.
Can I say that she drove the 'ish out of that car? Why did I hand her the card and allow her the first stint? Jebezus Christmas. But that's just the point isn't it? Zipcar wants you to use the car and drive it like yo momma bought it for ya, which in her case... was like a bat out of hell being chased by the LA & NYPD, with a herd of angry elephants not far behind, after drinking a can of Road Rage. No.. After 5 cans of Road Rage followed by 6 Red Bull chasers. Yes, I'm talking about you Karen! I'm still shaken up.
Otherwise, the experience was fantastic. These are virtually, mostly new or new-er cars with a few hundred to a few thousand miles on them. The only downside? You ever lend your irresponsible little brother your car for the day? Remember what it looked like when he returned it? Was it later than he said it would be returned? How much gas was left? Well Zipcar asks that everyone be courteous enough to at least clean out each time they borrow it and leave at least 1/4 tank of gas in the vehicle. When we picked it up, our Mazda 3 was a little dirty, dusty, was missing a piece of the rear view mirror (!?!?) and was a few minutes late back from it's previous jaunt. The dude sped in and actually jumped out of the car screaming 'Am I late!? Am I late!?' at us. @@ Idiot.
Of course we called the fully staffed 24 hour hot line, good for all issues including accidents and promptly complained. Zipcar responded quickly and courteously and advised that they would be dealing with the previous borrower about it all. No extra charges or skin off our backs. Of course the other guy? Yea, he would be expecting a call... and a bill.
Better than complaining to your parents, Aye?
We mentioned that we would take Mundy (did I mention that all Zipcars have given names?) through a car wash. And Zipcar insisted that we fax them the receipt when we were through as they wanted to promptly credit us back for our expense. How's that for service?
Need to step outside of the city limits as we were planning to? Most Zipcars in the Northeast corridor (with the exception of university cars ^^) are equipped with EZ Pass transponders (they'll bill you later).
After our spin upstate a quick dash by our families and our stop off at City Island for dinner, we both gave Zipcar a thumbs up, A+ or whatever rating system you chose to use to acknowledge greatness.
With gas prices on the way, waaaay up, and with our economy tightening way, waaaay up. Zipcar (which has just merged with competitor FlexCar and can now be found in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver and London) is absatooten lootly (their words) they way to go.
~Zipcar
P.S.
Need to Cycle and Drive? Zipcar is offering a $50 discount off of a new Swissbike folding Montague mountain bike, a free kickstand est. value $19.95, and a free set of folding pedals est. value $29.95.
http://www.zipcar.com/montague/
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