

Helsinki's Vision for Ending Car Ownership - jgunaratne
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/07/helsinkis-vision-for-ending-car-ownership-best-cityreads-of-the-week/374319/

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quinndupont
Great article, except it ends on such a short-sighted note: > To be sure,
Helsinki is not proposing to go entirely car-free. (Many people in Finland
have a summer cottage in the countryside, and rely on a car to get to it.)

I've never understood why people are so hung up about renting vehicles (not
hourly rental; traditional, daily rental). Considering the cost of buying,
maintaining, depreciating, and parking a car it is SO much cheaper (and
easier) to simply rent from a traditional rental company for these long road
trips. Need a 4x4? Rent it! Want a convertible for that coastal road trip?
Rent it! Want to race on a track? Rent it! (this last one is still
prohibitively expensive though).

In fact, some companies (Enterprise) will even pick you up at your home,
making the rental process that much easier. If you have a good credit card it
often includes insurance, which reduces the cost considerably (making daily
rental competitive with hourly-rental services over a few hours of use).

Combine daily-rental vehicles with this sort of Helsinki plan and I literally
can't see a reason why anyone would want a car.

~~~
daphneokeefe
I hesitate to rely on being able to rent a car to go to my cottage in the
country on the weekend, because everyone else will be doing the very same
thing at the same time. The possibility that I show up for my rental and there
isn't one available is really discouraging.

The number of rental cars available in the fleet would approach the number of
cars we have now.

~~~
zxcdw
You are making two assumptions. First, everyone goes to their cottage every
weekend. Second, none of those wouldn't own their own car.

I can see no reason to believe these two to be even remotely true, hence why I
see no argument there. Of course, it's your own point of view, but I think you
are exaggerating here by a large margin.

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cs702
The original post is at the Hensilki Times, here:
[http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-
news/domestic/11...](http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-
news/domestic/11062-the-future-resident-of-helsinki-will-not-own-a-car.html)

I suspect car ownership will decline over the next decade or two, regardless
of what most governments do, because self-driving cars and services like Uber
look likely to make on-demand transportation more convenient and economical
than owning a vehicle for the vast majority of people.

~~~
sokoloff
More economical? Almost certainly. That day is already be here for many with
services like ZipCar and existing taxi and taxi-esque services.

I don't see the current technology making car sharing/ride purchasing more
convenient than owning a car anytime soon. It's hard to beat the zero waiting
for a given trip, and even if you include the implied waiting time at the end
of your prior trip (finding a parking place, etc), people get more annoyed
waiting to begin doing something than they do if doing something takes a
little longer.

~~~
CaptainZapp

      I don't see the current technology making car sharing/ride purchasing more convenient than owning a car anytime soon.
    

I respectfully (albeit strongly) disagree.

I used to own a car and after my ex totaled it (she was my ex already when she
smashed the car and we're still good friends) I didn't bother to replace it.

Instead I bought a share of a car sharing cooperative and for the few times a
year, when I need a car their offerings are more than adequate.

Granted, there are a few factors that make this arrangement work very well:

Public transport is so abundant and flexible where I live that it's super rare
that I ever need a car.

I have, literally, a dozen cars that I can hire on short notice (peak hours
like Saturday, excluded) within a 5 minute walking distance. The models
represent the range from a Smart to a Mercedes transporter

The vehicles are always well maintained, clean and if necessary outfitted with
winter tires in a timely manner

When I need a car, I couldn't care less what model I'm driving, except maybe:
a Smart is not too ideal to transport bulky goods

I don't have to bother with the dirty business of owning a car

It's _much_ cheaper than owning.

If you need a car during peak times some planning is advisable. The worst case
was when I needed to take a tram for a couple stations to get to the nearest
available vehicle.

So, I think it really depends on how it's organized, availability of vehicles
and the quality of public transport. So you don't need a car most of the times
to begin with.

~~~
tegeek
I've been living in Stockholm, Sweden for the past 3 years and I never owned a
car until this May.

Now I can testify based on my last 3 months usage that owing a car in
Stockholm is more expensive/headache than the public transport + membership
with some X car service.

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prawn
Worth reading the link in that article to Kutsuplus:

    
    
      https://kutsuplus.fi/home
      http://www.wired.com/2013/10/on-demand-public-transit/
    

Didn't think we'd see this sort of algorithm-driven group transport until
driverless cars took the labour cost away and made it more economical, but
here it is.

------
qwerta
North Korea is far ahead at this front.

If they succeed at Finland I would fund start-up to help owners to bring their
cars from other EU countries. In EU you can stay with your car in other
country up to 6 months, before it is subject to local road tax, registration
and import duties.

