In order to rent a car, you have to be a member. They have certain facts about you and the ability to charge you for damages etc. It would not be a good idea to take the car. Your credit card being charged for an entire car would not be such a good thing!

You make your reservation on-line and have to swipe a card at the car in order to get in. Once inside, you log a PIN number into a keypad to get the car started. 

It works really well. I was a member almost from the beginning and still keep my card in case of visits. There were cars placed all around the city. At first, I had to bike about 8 blocks to get to one or take the train, but they expanded very quickly and I had a car about 2 blocks from where I lived. It was also really handy to have a membership if you only had a small car. There were a few SUVs and trucks you could get to pick up that Craigslist couch or trip to Ikea-- Ikea actually has a carshare spot right up at the front! 

I understand that they are increasing the number of electric cars in the fleet. There are carshares around all sorts of places around the US. It seems to be a pretty successful venture. 

No, Duluth isn't so very bike friendly. But I can imagine some in Canal Park that tourists would flock to paying for a truck that made trips bringing the bikes to the top of the hill.... bus up, bike down? 

I've personally wished for bus up, ski down!

Car share costs less than Enterprise when you're not renting overnight. If you only need the car far a few hours, it is far less expensive. 

I'm not certain that a city of this size could support car share, but it seems to me that a community foundation might spend a little time finding out. I-Go started as part of a community foundation, and for the first few years was actually administered by another car share in Portland. There are ways to start small.

Let's separate the two ideas. Car share: probably too expensive for Duluth, but something to file into the idea folder. 

Bike Share. Why would this be too expensive for a city of this size? I'm pretty sure it would be possible for the capital expenses to be paid by grant. The number of memberships would sort of decide how many bikes there would be, wouldn't it? San Fran would need far more bikes than Duluth, but that just means that the program wouldn't be as big. I could envision essentially three places to have them. Downtown near bus depot, Canal Park and up near the colleges somewhere. Put maybe 4 bikes in each place and it's 12 bikes.

I feel like someone did some sort of pedestrian count study last spring. It would be interesting to know the results. 

But yes, 3 season would be the way to go. Do they keep the bikes accessible in Minneapolis over the winter? How do they handle that there?

More bikes, more bike friendly. 

Yeah, I think probably people would enjoy renting to go doooowwwwwnnnnn. But I also think that the rate of rental in and around Canal Park could possibly offset the costs of hauling the bikes back uuuuppppp.