Zipcar car-sharing now available to all downtown residents

The world's largest car-sharing service is now available in downtown Detroit.
 
Zipcar, founded in Massachusetts in 2000, is now available for use for all of the estimated 6,000 downtown Detroit residents thanks to Rock Ventures.
 
Matthew Roling, Director of Business Development for Rock Ventures, was turned on to the concept after seeing Wayne State University's own Zipcar program (available to students, faculty and staff). "Anything we can do to make downtown more desirable for young people to live, work, and play is something we're focused on," Roling says. He adds that there are a lot of different ways to encourage transit development in the city, and allowing people the opportunity to go carless by still giving them access to cars as needed is an important step.
 
Zipcar has issued two cars for this pilot downtown program. The cars are located inside the Bedrock-owned garage at 1001 Woodward across from Compuware. To utilize this car-sharing program, create an account on zipcar.com and wait for your Zipcard to arrive in the mail. The card is loaded with all of your information; this is how you will be able to access your reservation. Make a reservation online (availability is first-come, first-serve; while cars may be available on demand, in order to ensure availability it is recommended you reserve in advance), then at your reservation time you just walk up to the car you reserved and swipe your Zipcard. Et voila.
 
Reservations cost between $8 and $10 per hour, depending on the car. More cars may become available in the future depending on how much demand this pilot program creates.
 
While Rock Ventures/Quicken Loans team members are being offered incentives to use this program and go carless, this Zipcar program is available to ALL downtown residents.
 
Source: Matthew Roling, Director of Business Development for Rock Ventures
Writer: Nicole Rupersburg

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