When the bus or bike won't do ...

Oct 12, 2008 (Chicago Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- TGT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Brittani Baxter owns a Volkswagen Beetle, but she finds keeping it in Chicago impractical. TheUniversity of Chicago junior, says that between the cost of gas and car insurance, and the lack of parking near her Hyde Park apartment, she'd rather leave her car back home in Pittsburgh.

Still, Baxter needs wheels now and then--and so she turns to a car-sharing service, an increasingly common way for carless urbanites to get around. The services--I-GO and Zipcar are prominent in Chicagoland--are a fast, affordable alternative to owning a car in the city, where parking tickets and gas prices push up expenses and anxiety.

Membership in a car-sharing service gives licensed drivers access to shared cars using an electronic keycard. A user reserves a car for a set number of hours, then returns it to the pickup spot. Need gas along the way? Gas cards come with the membership.

Baxter uses the I-GO service. After reserving a car online, Baxter walks three minutes to the I-GO parking space near her apartment. That spot will be waiting for her, by the way, when she returns from her errands.

"With the grocery store, it's helpful for me to carry great big heavy stuff--eight rolls of paper towels," says Baxter, 20. "And over the summer, I had an internship in Lincoln Park. It would've taken me up to two hours to get there with CTA." Her trip topped out at 40 minutes with the I-GO car. "Plus coming back at night, it was really helpful. I felt much safer."

Colleen Stevens, 29, became a Zipcar user in January 2007 and calculates that she saves at least $225 a month by eliminating insurance, gas and parking costs. There's a Zipcar stall right behind her Wrigleyville apartment building, and if both cars are in use, she can walk 10 minutes to another Zipcar location.

"If I know exactly what time and what day I want to take the car out, the reservation online takes two minutes," says Stevens, a graphic designer. "I like to go to the grocery store, the Target, or visit my parents who live on the South Shore. My quick trip to Target runs anywhere from $16 to $30, so it's cheaper than a cab."

"Our members drive less and any time you do car sharing, it's a conscious decision--you have to think about biking or taking the 'L' El as options," says Steve Bishop, general manager for Zipcar in Chicago. "If you own a car, you're more likely to just get in the car and go to the store."

Both services consider themselves additional transportation options, not replacements for public transit. Zipcar has 11 cars at eight CTA locations, and I-GO tries to station its cars near mass transit bus routes and "L" stops.

"Half our members sell a car or postpone a decision to buy a car as a result of our program, and transit use goes up," says Sharon Feigon, chief executive of I-GO. "Every month we're adding 500 members [locally] and we were at 10,000 last month. It is amazing that it's taken off because the conversation we had when we started I-GO was 'Americans love their car. How would they ever share a car?' Or: 'Would they drive the car away and never bring it back?' "

Perish the thought. Though she shares it with others, Baxter treats one I-GO car as if it were hers. "My favorite I-GO car is just around the block: a red, late-model Toyota Prius," she says. "I know people who have to park their cars much farther away."

Stevens knows the feeling. "There's a Mazda Three Zipcar right near me," she says. "It's a vibrant cobalt blue. And I get sad when it's not available."

lcarlozo@tribune.com

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