The Inclusive on Courtland | 38, 34, 30 & 29 fl | Proposed

[danbrotherston]

2) People have very little idea how much they spend on their cars.  Most of it is a sunk cost on insurance, depreciation, and maintenance. So I doubt many people have ever done the "how much is this trip costing me" calculation.

For many people it's true, but not all. My car has cost me about $4500/year in depreciation (yes, it's a nice car), $1000/year in insurance and maybe $600/year in maintenance and tires (haven't had to pay for a repair yet in the nine years I have had it).  That's a little over $6000/year, or $500/month. For me, that has been an acceptable standby cost (not counting the gas for trips here). Others will have different math.

For me, having the car share partially mitigates the problems, but obviously this only applies in a couple of areas of the city, and wouldn't on Courtland.

Communauto has 15 locations in Kitchener. Adding one at Virerra doesn't seem like a stretch, especially considering that there will be 1,500 units there, in addition to the existing buildings. But I doubt any discussions have been had about this so far.

I mean, it would depend on how many trips you take no? If you used your car every two months, you could probably hire a limo each time for that price. But if it's worth it to you, that's great, I mean, some people own cars just as a hobby, and only drive them a few times a year.

But my issue is that I believe very few people actually do the math. A car is just something an adult owns, it costs what it costs...and in many cases, again, because there is no actual alternative.

As for Communauto, they could possibly add one there, it's hard to know--I don't know the particular economics of their vehicles (although given that I was a member of community car share, I probably could get an idea of it). The general unwalkability of the area means they're likely only to capture users from that development, and possibly the condos across the road--sadly even the multiple Fallowfield towers are probably too far--given the windswept chasm between them.

With the transit station there, they could possibly make a compelling argument. But ironically, the biggest determinate of whether they would actually be successful with a car share vehicle there or not is the parking situation at Virerra, if parking is charged separately, it would probably significantly increase the number of users of a car share. In fact, this is one type of incentive that can be offered to developers, a reduction in parking minimums in return for hosting car sharing services (leaving aside the fact I think we should not have parking minimums). It comes back to the original point, 50 dollars a month for parking is far more effective at deterring people from owning (or driving) a car, than 300 dollars a month in depreciation.