Area Soldier Killed In Fort Hood Rampage
Stroger Makes Hollywood Play
Put Down Your Nanowrimo And Leave The House
Sox Shuffle Continues
Over the past few months, the rising gas prices have been bumming us out. At first, we were just resigned to pay more to travel, but then the credit card bills arrived and the full scope of what we had done finally hit us square in the jaw. So, in order to avoid total insolvency, we’ve been looking hard for some alternatives. The CTA always beckons, but especially when we’re carrying full bags of groceries, the appeal of a crowded bus is somewhat limited. [Ed note: Old-lady shopping cart!]
Apparently, we’re not the only person to have gone down this road. Car sharing programs, in which you pay a startup-fee and then an hourly rate for use of a car, have experienced a fairly dramatic rise in the past few months. According to the Sun Times, I-Go gained 1000 members in the past three months and of a 178 new Zipcar members surveyed, a significant portion claimed gas prices as their reason for signing up.
Of the two, we prefer I-Go. It’s a locally owned non-profit company, and its rates are a bit more reasonable. They also offer a few “budget plans” with a monthly fee to buy a fixed number of hours/miles. Lastly, for the night owls, they offer very cheap rates between midnight and 6 A.M. However, if you want to chose your type car and fit it to the occasion (like a sports car for a hot date) Zipcar is for you.
Photo by supafly
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
iGo is great. And the cheaper rates at midnight mean I can go grocery shopping for 2 hours for about $4, way cheaper than Peapod's delivery charge.
The only trouble with shopping after midnight is the Dominick's I go to only has one checkout isle open and I feel kind of bad about making a bunch of people with one or two items wait while I do my bimonthly shopping.
Props to the guy buying a bottle of red wine and a box of sugar cookies, though. I've always had a hard time picking the right wine for cookies.
Not to undercut the iGos and Zipcars of the world, because they really are great, rental cars are also often competitively priced. We were zipcar members basically to have access to vehicles to move IKEA-type stuff. When we moved to the northwest side, we lost our reasonably easy access to both iGo and Zipcar. However, it turns out that the Enterprise rental car a few blocks away is very similarly priced for longer trips. Not good for 2 a.m. grocery shopping, but similar for IKEA.
Just a thought.
For some reason, the rental outfits downtown are always super expensive. The break-even point during the day seems to be about 5-6 hours. Also, they tend to be open fairly restrictive hours (i.e. no sundays)
I did take a road trip to Cincy about a year ago and I rented from Budget at Midway for $15 / day. That was pretty sweet.
@ sfrazer:
"Props to the guy buying a bottle of red wine and a box of sugar cookies, though. I've always had a hard time picking the right wine for cookies."
I would have went with a blush, myself.
I've been an I-Go member for about three years and I love it. So do my friends with cars--I'm not bumming rides anymore, unless it's to go someplace with them like a movie or a party. I don't know where on the Northwest Sid you are, D, but I'm in Albany Park and there are two cars I can walk to and another 5-6 no more than two L stops away.