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to promote civic engagement in the Philadelphia region.Philly Car Share shake-up
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 12:08 am - by Matt Campbell. Filed under: Transportation.
Philadelphia Magazine’s blog is reporting that a shake-up among top executives may be underway at Philly Car Share. The blog The Daily Examiner says an anonymous source indicates that co-founder Tanya Seaman has resigned, and the status of co-founder Clayton Lane is unclear. One source says, after a major argument took place at Philly Car Share’s office Lane was asked to leave the property and told not to return. But Lane says he’s still very much part of the team.
Philly Car Share has shown incredible growth since it first began operations back in November 2002. Back then it had just nine members and two cars. Today they have a fleet of over 400 cars with more than 40,000 members. While Philly Mag doesn’t get into what might be behind the company’s troubles, Philly Car Share now faces direct competition from Zip Car which set-up shop in Philadelphia. In fact, the City in a an effort to save a few bucks dumped Philly Car Share in favor of Zip Car as its source for rental cars for city workers.
September 9th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Very interesting, please follow the story.
I hope the city saved a lot of money to make it worthwhile to dump a local business in favor of a national chain. Short sighted as usual.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:49 am
The city saved virtually no money… I heard the whole deal was about $35 grand. No one knows how much it cost the city to migrate its employees from Philly CarShare to Zipcar, but the net financial impact was probably negative. And of course the fact that a nonprofit - one that invests in our community every day - got booted in favor of an out of town for-profit says something about our decision makers.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Does anyone have experience with both companies? If you were going to pick just one car-share company which one would it be?
September 10th, 2008 at 8:48 am
As the Donald says~ “it is nothing personal just business” local or national it is more than obvious that a deal could not be negotiated if you do not negotiate it you do not get it . So now people gretz that it is a local business Zip car or Car Share they still have to pay philly taxes and all fo that good stuff. People are just never happy and the city is SAVING SOME CHANGE!