So Veale, a designer, and his solicitor girlfriend, Emma Bain, joined Australia’s first car-share outfit.  In a country slavishly devoted to private car ownership, Newtown CarShare has reason to celebrate its first birthday. It’s grown nicely and Melbourne looks like being the next destination. Co-Founder Bruce Jeffreys says car share not only cuts down private car use but builds up community. 

Jeffreys says: ‘There’s actually quite a community feeling that’s developed, which we didn’t expect’.  Communal vibe and good public transport – paradoxically – are the recipe for the car share business, which Jeffreys says run well in Europe and North America.  It’s public transport for most trips and car share for lugging furniture, say, or late-night visits to friends. Jeffreys says the recipe would work in Melbourne. The business began last June with 12 members and three cars. Now there are seven cars, including a utility, parked around Sydney’s inner west, and opening to a special key (smart cards for all cars are on the way).

Booking is by internet – www.newtowncarshare.info – or phone. A frequent user might pay $30 a month, $4 an hour and 35c per km.  Savings like this attracted Veale. He and Bain spend $30 to $50 a week on car share.

Jeffreys says seven of his members have sold their own cars since taking up car sharing and another nine who had been planning to buy a car no longer need to.  And without private cars, they were less likely to drive 100m to the corner shop.  Jeffreys tracked car usage before and after his members began to car share. There was a 55 per cent cut in total kilometres, an estimated reduction of 31, 878kg of green-house gas emissions. ‘We’re easing them into lower car usage’, Jeffreys says.