This week marked another level of success of Halifax’s only carsharing company, CarShareHFX. With a new architecture firm located in the downtown area joining on as a member, they have become leaders in the ‘Greener Halifax’ movement.

This service should almost sell itself. With the opportunity to have a car within walking distance or even directly on site and that doesn’t cost the owner a cent for gas, why isn’t even firm downtown jumping on the bandwagon?

This link leads you to a video from July 29th down at our Cable Wharf location. Ashley King, from Haligonia.ca, has taken his time to do a quick interview with Pam Cooley on the success and value of becoming a workplace member of CarShareHFX. 

Haligonia - CarShareHFX

CarShareHFX gives companies the ability to track all their employee’s time and distance, give each of them a specific driver number and cut down on overall expenses of owning a company car. After each month the company receives a statement breaking down exactly who drove how much and for how long. This invoice can work as a tool for forecasting travel spending in coming years and be used in their records.

What do you think of the workplace memberships? Why or why don’t you believe it is the best form of travel for the companies in the downtown area?

 “ Watch out for electricity kids!”, this famous quote from the once famous cartoon Louie the Lightning Bug has never been truer. With costs of almost everything going up… the sales and use of plug-in or electric cars has also jumped. Just this month Zip Car, North America’s largest carsharing company, hit the market hard by introducing their first plug-in “pods” in Canada. They were initially tested in the San Francisco market were Zip Car reported, “75 percent of the miles logged on those vehicles have been battery-powered. With 85 percent of customers telling the company that they would be interested in driving plug-ins”.  

http://www.hybridcars.com/news/car-share-companies-plug-25909.html

What do you think of the electric cars? Although they have lower usage costs, they’re price tag is quite high at an average of $25,000 and have a max speed of ~ 60 mph. Would you buy an electric car? Or possibly use one through a carshare company?

Also check out this interesting article from the Vancouver Sun from last month. The city of Vancouver is putting the squeeze on commuters heading to the downtown sector in Vancouver hoping to initiate some more walking, cycling and use of transit.

With Halifax’s big downtown parking problem is this something you think the city council should think about?

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Vancouver+puts+squeeze+downtown+parking/1675736/story.html

Metro Transit price increases became effective on Canada Day. This is the first price hike in the transit fares since January 2005. The original cost of $2 for an adult is now up a quart to $2.25 a ride. Seniors and Kids will ride for a dime more, at $1.50 a lift. The metropasses have also been affected by the increase; adults went from $60 to $70, seniors and kids from $42 to $52 and students will see the same ten dollar increases as their passes are now up from $54 to $64. 

Even with all of these price increases you will still have to put up with the continuous and almost unavoidable Halifax construction. The HRM is putting in new water lines across the city and this has slowed down much of the traffic routes, even closing some streets down entirely. Also, the MacDonald bridge will be closed down on weekends for construction. CBC announced this story in the middle of May.

This link has a detailed schedule of when and where the construction is going to be taking place this summer. Perhaps it will help you plan routes better and help with your time management. 

http://www.halifaxnewsnet.ca/index.cfm?sid=261330&sc=608

How do you feel about the construction in the HRM? How often are you sitting on the bus about to pull your hair out because your late for work? 

Maybe we could help!