The city is gearing up to log another entry on the ever-growing "Berkeley firsts" list. And this Earth-friendly move is aimed to save taxpayers some money.
A plan to add a handful of City CarShare communal hybrid cars to the city's fleet for part-time use is gaining traction.
City CarShare is the three-year-old, nonprofit program — featuring neon-green Volkswagen Beetles — to get people out of their cars by offering communal vehicles by the hour.
If the City Council gives the proposal a green light next week, the city will spend up to $413,000 over the next three years, a savings of roughly $400,000, to replace 15 gas-guzzling fleet cars with up to six City CarShare hybrids.
Employees on city business — planners, building inspectors, code inspectors — will check out the cars through a computerized reservation system on work days. On weeknights and on weekends the cars will be parked at City Hall and behind the police station for use by CarShare members. More communal cars theoretically means more parking spaces, fewer emissions and less gas use, City CarShare and Berkeley officials said.
"People (using the service) are selling their cars, they are driving less after joining, and a large number of people are putting off the purchase of a new vehicle because they have access to our cars," said City CarShare Executive Director Larry Magid.
Earlier this year, a University of California, Berkeley study found that 30 percent of San Franciscans who enrolled later sold one or more of their cars. Overall car use among members fell 47 percent, reducing 13,000 miles of car travel, 720 gallons of gas consumption and 10 tons of carbon dioxide emissions every day, the study showed.
While other American cities use communal cars for city business, they don't allow their residents to use them in the off hours, officials said. "This is a first," Magid said.
Also on the list of Berkeley firsts: the first city in the nation to ban Styrofoam, the first city to do curbside recycling and the first city to install curb cuts in sidewalks for wheelchairs and bicycles.
The city projects it will save up to $250,000 on such things as replacement cars, gas and maintenance over three years, and roughly $150,000 over three years on insurance, lost employee work time reserving cars and fleet management.
But Berkeley is also buying into the program for environmental reasons, officials said. "One of the benefits is we will be getting rid of older vehicles and replacing them with newer ones so we will be getting an air-quality benefit and spending less money on fuel," said city transportation planner Matt Nichols. Hybrids get roughly 50 miles to the gallon.
"It's a giant winner for the people of Berkeley and the city," said Mayor Tom Bates. "We are going to help the environment, save money and share our cars."
City employees will also save time. They won't have to chase down car keys (City CarShare vehicles have the keys inside), remind colleagues to return a fleet car by a deadline or track down a car's parking space.
"Most of our vehicles are managed by the department that has them. They are shared to some degree now, but there isn't an efficient way to reserve them," Nichols said. "This is an attempt to be more efficient."
The new system is also expected to reduce "nonbusiness-related" trips as mileage will be clocked each time a car goes out. CarShare spokesman Eliot Dobris said Berkeley will be the first city in the country to offer up communal city fleet cars to other drivers in the off hours.
"It's really a perfect fit because most of our members are individuals who use the cars on evenings and weekends," Dobris said.
That's a good thing for City CarShare member Elanor Schoomer, 23, of Berkeley.
"There have been times when I have really wanted a car at the last minute and they've been taken," Schoomer said.
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