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Car-Sharing Program Seeks Jumpstart

County officials in Montgomery County in Maryland said the car-sharing program that was implemented in January has only been used 16 times as of April 24 and has cost more than $1,300 an hour to use the vehicles.

by Staff
May 27, 2009
1 min to read


When Montgomery, Md., county officials introduced a car sharing program using fuel-efficient vehicles in January of this year, they anticipated saving money and helping the environment. However, according to the Washington Examiner, the county has been paying more than $1,300 an hour to use the vehicles, which have only been used 16 times with a total of 83.5 hours as of April 24.

The goal of the program is to reduce the use of county-owned vehicles. Ideally, county employees would rent the fuel-efficient vehicles, which can be picked up and dropped off on county property, by the hour. It costs less than $10 an hour to rent a vehicle on a weekday.

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Currently, the county has spent more than $100,000 for 28 hybrid vehicles. County officials believe the car-sharing program has gotten off to a rough start because employees are reluctant to release their own county-assigned vehicles. However, officials believe once they take away 100 cars that have hardly been operated, the pay off of the car-share program will be evident.

The county is currently thinking of reducing the program from 28 cars to 18. Additionally, the program would help the county save $1.5 million, reports the Examiner.

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