About 3-1/2 years ago I made the decision to give my Chevy S-10 pickup truck to my niece and take a chance on using the CTA (train and bus) and I-Go car sharing program to get around Chicago. Since then, my life has become a lot less stressful; I no longer sit in traffic dropping f-bombs in hopes I would get to my destination quicker. 

I always thought it would take me twice as long to get somewhere using the bus – fact is, I usually get to where I’m going in the same amount of time. With the addition of Bus Tracker to my mobile device – I can schedule my travel times accordingly. True, the CTA has a tendency of being unreliable at times, but when I compare that to all those times I drove around looking for a parking space, sitting in traffic, driving behind a moron and parking tickets; at this time, I’ll take my chances with the train and bus. 

When I do need a car, I use I-Go. For those who don’t know how I-Go or Zipcar works; you login to their website and reserve a car in increments of 30 minutes. I-Go has different payment options for individuals and businesses depending on how often you need to use a car. One of the nice features with using I-Go is that I don’t have to pay for gas or insurance, it’s all covered by the program. Both car sharing programs have cars parked throughout the city, at this time mostly in neighborhoods downtown and on the northside. However I’ve noticed that I-Go has expanded their fleet into the South Loop, Pilsen, Bridgeport, Bronzville and Hyde Park within the past year.

I’ve spent about a third of what I would have spent if I owned a car since making this transportation transition. For someone like myself, who lives and works in the city, using public transportation and car sharing program has worked out really well from both a financial and transportation point of view. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-car, I just don’t need one at this time.

Need more info?
I-Go website
Zipcar website

Tags: car sharing, Chicago, CTA, I-Go, Public Transportation, Zipcar

This entry was posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 11:20 pm and is filed under Mixed Nuts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.