The residents of two major cities in California have recently seen the introduction of car sharing and bicycle hire operations, thus increasing their choice of transport.
In Los Angeles, the US’s largest car sharing network, Zipcar, has recently opened for business, placing over 125 vehicles throughout the city. The ‘car capital’ of the US is already exhibiting adoption trends and usage patterns similar to the other major markets across the US.
Meanwhile, it seems that one of the biggest stumbling blocks to bicycle sharing in San Francisco has been overcome. The recent addition of electric bicycles to the City CarFleet’s existing car sharing service, will allow users to deal with the city’s steep hills and terrain without facing exhaustion.
According to TreeHugger, the program will be trialled to find out how many car-share trips will be replaced by electric bicycle trips, and what factors influence the switch. 45 e-bikes will be added to the fleet in 2012, with an additional 45 to be added in 2013.