Is it too soon for Vail to pilot a car share program?
The towns of Vail and Avon could look to trial a car share program this year, if the proposal is right
Ali Longwell/Vail Daily archive
As Eagle County and its municipalities seek ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from single occupancy vehicles, there is one idea that has long been on the table: creating a regional car share program. But when and where such a program would be utilized has communities stalling on implementation.
Car share programs provide an on-demand, membership-based form of short-term car rental in which you only pay for what you use. These programs can be used to increase access, affordability and equity with vehicle rentals.
Last fall, the communities of Avon, Minturn, Vail and Eagle County put out a request for proposal to create a pilot program. Since then, Eagle County and Minturn opted out of a regional car share for now.
On Tuesday, Feb. 6, the Vail Town Council heard the most recent proposal, which would implement a pilot program in both Avon and Vail in partnership with Colorado Car Share. Avon is expected to also hear the presentation in the coming weeks.
Colorado Car Share is a nonprofit organization that is currently operating car share programs in Boulder, Denver, Breckenridge, Dillon and Frisco.
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According to the organization, one car share vehicle replaces between 9 to 13 personally-owned vehicles, reduces the amount members drive by 40% to 50% and prevents over 73 tons of greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere.
The municipalities decided to engage a partner organization to help manage and implement the program rather than build one in-house from the ground up. According to Kristen Bertuglia, the town of Vail’s director of environmental sustainability, going with Colorado Car Share would allow the towns to tap into a proven system (and developed app), therefore reducing complexity and likely, cost.
To pilot or not to pilot?
The proposal from Colorado Car Share would provide Avon and Vail with two cars each. The first year of the program — which would include a community site assessment, stakeholder engagement, initial deployment and more — is estimated to cost around $133,075 per community. The second year is estimated to cost around $12,975 per community.
In addition to meeting environmental and transit goals, having a car share program has been discussed as a way to reach Eagle County’s affordable housing goals by reducing parking on-site.
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Vail Town Manager Russ Forrest commented that there was real interest from all the county’s mayors and managers to see “how (car sharing) can provide mobility options for affordable housing projects, where parking at the end of the day can kill the affordability of housing projects.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, staff recommended creating a pilot program with two vehicles in Vail, one fully electric and one plug-in hybrid, to be located at the Red Sandstone parking structure. With council support, staff was prepared to move ahead with formalizing a program, seeking grants and other funding opportunities and preparing to start the car share.
“This would be a pilot, an experiment, this initial step (to determine) can we deploy these in an effective way to really help with mobility in our housing projects, particularly as we’re looking at significant new housing projects which have a relatively low parking ratio,” Forrest added.
The Town Council was not convinced, however, that the recommended timeframe and structure was quite right.
“I’m in favor of the concept of this, but I feel like we’re 18 months too soon,” Coggin said, referring specifically to the upcoming developments at Timber Ridge — which will have 294 units and 332 parking spaces — and West Middle Creek.
The town did discuss piloting the program at Residences at Main Vail, its newest employee housing project that welcomed residents last year. The site had 72 units and 72 parking spaces, which would have made it relevant to the question the town is seeking to answer. However, all the parking spaces are accounted for so the town could not pilot the car share there.
Until West Middle Creek is built, having the cars at Red Sandstone might not make sense, Coggin suggested.
“Until then, I don’t know who’s going to use it, because I don’t see a density of people who are there,” he said, adding that if piloted there this year, “I don’t think we’re going to get the data we need to make informed decisions about moving forward.”
Many council members agreed that they wanted more data and information to ensure the program was implemented correctly. Council member Sam Biszantz raised a concern that the town needed to understand who would use the program and the types of cars they need to ensure successful utilization.
“If we’re listening to the residents that this program is intended to serve, we might get a better idea of the type of vehicle we need. I want to really understand before we jump in and make the barriers to entry as low as possible,” added Council member Barry Davis.
Peter Davis Krahenbuh, the executive director of Colorado Car Share, agreed with these concerns.
“We agree completely and had suggested in our proposal that a collaborative feasibility assessment and readiness approach take place, including identifying the appropriate stakeholders and making sure they’re engaged,” he said. “We have zero interest in going into a community that we can’t support beyond any pilot program.”
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With general support for the concept, but a lot of questions about implementation, the town delayed giving its nod of approval until it obtains more market data including garnering interest from residents through surveys. Forrest suggested returning to the council with more information and refined ideas in the future.
However, Council member Pete Seibert did express some urgency in figuring out how a car share would work in Vail.
“We have a responsibility to get this information, hopefully, sooner rather than later. I understand maybe the location in Red Sandstone doesn’t get it for us, but we need to know this stuff because this is part of what we used as a rationale to get to the parking numbers that we used for Timber Ridge, West Middle Creek,” Seibert said. “This is one of the things that keeps getting thrown out there … we need to know how this works.”
