ZipCar

Tried it yesterday, in advance of possibly getting rid of the car. Brief summary for you:

CONVENIENCE: Pretty much off the charts. There are dozens of cars within a few blocks of us (including some within a block). Once you've booked it, you just go to the car and it's programmed to accept your card to open the locks. While out with the car, you can use your iPhone to lock/unlock it (the keys for the ignition stay in the car at all times). When you're done, you just return the car same place. No paper work, nothing. Only marginally less convenient then taking the elevator down to your own car in the parkade.

COST: For the cheaper car, it's about $10/hr. (You can get a 10% discount with a small monthly commitment, which we would likely do if we sold our car). So let's call it $9/hr. That includes gas. I took it for 3 hours, probably used $10 in gas. So the net cost is around $17. We figure we'll net (conservatively) around $300/month by not owning a car (not counting whatever we get for selling it). So we could use the zipcar for 3 hours a day roughly 17-18 times a month and break even. Seeing that's probably four times as often as we actually would, I'm pretty sure we'll be considerably ahead. Even allowing for the occasional longer trip (the day rate is not that great, if we were going to have a car for a few days I think we'd go with a rental car company).

DOWNSIDES: Well, you have to commit to the amount of time you want the car ahead of time. If you go way under, you don't get a refund. If you go over, there's a hefty late fee. But if the car is not booked by someone else, you can extend it by text at the very last minute for the regular rate. I was late getting back yesterday, but it only cost me $5 to book an extra half hour. When you are booking online you can actually see what cars have bookings later in the day, so you could make sure to book one that is not otherwise claimed and be fairly confident you'll be able to extend if running late.

Also, the car I had was covered in birdshit. It was pretty gross. Otherwise the car was totally fine, if a wee bit non-descript (certainly not remotely baller, but whatever). You can book better cars for a bit more, like an Audi A3 for an extra $5/hr. I assume they keep those parked places with less birds. If I had more time, I would have taken the car I had for a wash. They'll reimburse you for that (and give you $15 for your trouble). There's a lot of stuff like that, trying to encourage the community to take ownership of the cars. Which makes sense and is kinda cool, even the cynical part of me feels like it's just a way for them to have less employees.

Overall I think it's a pretty amazing system. Super easy, reasonably priced. Looks like the family car is a goner.