If a few of these people became a passenger one day in four,  100,000 cars would be taken off our roads. Maybe then we wouldn’t any more roads or bridges? There are other benefits from ridesharing too!

Why wouldn’t we look at some of these low cost options, like ridesharing and carsharing, before we increased GST, rates and other taxes?

Read more http://www.ridesharinginstitute.org/sites/default/files/Ridesharing%20Institute%20News%20Release%202012%2002%2015%20final.pdf

Go Get, Australia’s largest carshare company had a neat story in their latest newsletter.

The City of Sydney is helping to make carsharing even more convenient, by adding bicycle parking rings to some of the sign poles next to carshare pods.

So if you need to cycle to a  car that might be a little far to walk – say you want a car to shoot out shopping- you can lock up your bike while you drive out there.

You can then drop your new flatpacks, rugs, scented candles, and ergonomic pillows at home, and then return the car back to its pod, before cycling back home!

We’ve sent the idea to Auckland Council, so hopefully the new onstreet car park signs might have a bike ring! Did you see the brightly painted carshare space! COOL

A recent report shows  almost 900 fewer cars a week travelled over the Auckland Harbour Bridge in 2011 compared with 2010.

NZTA figures show 1,684,601 cars crossed the bridge in the year to December, 44,545 fewer than in 2010.

Figures provided by New Zealand-owned petrol retailer Gull from local authority levies on petrol sales in the Auckland region showed 19 million fewer litres of petrol were sold in the year to June 2011 - a two per cent drop on the previous year.

And Auckland Transport Authority figures show there were 68,590,762 passenger trips on buses, trains and ferries for the 12 months to October 2011 – an increase of 6,033,457 or a 9.6 per cent rise for the year.

“That’s good news for those who want to make the city more liveable,” says Victoria Carter, co-founder of Cityhop carshare, fewer cars mean less emissions, cleaner air and waterways, and most importantly safer streets for those who walk or bike.

“All the cities in the world that are becoming more liveable are reclaiming their streets and saying the streets have to have fewer cars on them.”

Carsharing makes it much easier for people to deliberately choose not to own a car. Now that Auckland Transport has put cars on street in parts of the city with more to come it really is viable for people to sell their car and use car share when they need wheels.”

John Pagani tweeted a post Beautiful with a link. Once I watched it, I had to email it to lots of people as well as re-tweet to make sure as many people as possilbe saw it.

One friend, replied, “I cried watching it”. Another,”I’ve sent to everyone I think will love too.”

<iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/nGeXdv-uPaw” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

This is a non-commercial attempt to highlight the fact that world leaders, irresponsible corporates and mindless ‘consumers’ are combining to destroy life on earth. It is dedicated to all who died fighting for the planet and those whose lives are on the line today. The cut was put together by Vivek Chauhan, a young film maker, together with naturalists working with the Sanctuary Asia network (www.sanctuaryasia.com).

Content credit: The principal source for the footage was Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s incredible film HOME http://www.homethemovie.org/. The music was by Armand Amar. Thank you too Greenpeace and http://timescapes.org/

 Of course we have to say the no 1 green giving gift would be a membership to Cityhop car share club. “When people join carshare” says Victoria Carter, co-founder, “they halve the miles they drive. They find they walk more and many decide to sell a car!” You could buy someone a membership for $95 and we will throw in a free driving hour. Write Cityhop blog in the comments.

 2. The second idea for green giving, is to give someone you know some driving credits. If you have a friend who carshares call us and buy some driving hours. $15 per hour, an overnight for $30 or a 24 ride for $75.

 3. Buy a friend a worm farm. We are fans of the Hungry Bin. This worm farm is on wheels, is easy to move about and easy to use. Hungry Bin was the runner up at the SBN Design and Innovation awards to Cityhop last month. Victoria says, “I’m a huge worm farm fan, amazing compost,  and nutrient rich liquid and this system looks so easy to operate, I’m getting one for Christmas!” Cityhop members get a 10 % discount if they buy before January 30 – put Cityhop in the promo code.

 4. Crafty? Even if you aren’t, go to Spotlight buy some taffeta bags or velvet bags and buy soap. Trademe has sellers who make homemade soaps with beautiful fragrances. Pop a bar of soap in the bag and suggest to your friends they put it amongst their clothes.

 5. Give the gift of fresh food. Buy a pot, a terracotta pot can be bought for under $5; fill with soil and get something that grows easily like tomato seedlings or herbs. You’ll need to get cracking on this one, so the fledgling plants look more thriving!

 Finally, don’t forget, don’t buy wrapping paper. All year I save any of the nice paper bags I have been given to put presents in and tie them with the ribbons from any bunches of flowers I have received. This  really is  recycling and re-using!

Many of the people who have donated a car park to us also use car share. So who are these thoughtful organisations? Maybe you might like to see if your company is interested in having its own carshare car on site? We are always looking for new locations. Give us a call on 374 5081

 First up, Isthmus whose car park is in Sale St. Gavin Lister, a director of Isthmus decided to give up his own private park for car share so he and his team as well as members of the public can carshare instead of owning their own car. Isthmus is  a  New Zealand-based design practice with an international profile in executing award-winning landscape architecture, urban design and landscape planning.

 Massey University was next. Their SHORE and Whariki units which are based at Massey University House at 90 Symonds St  house a team of twenty to thirty social science researchers who use car share to move about. We think this university shows that they really are at the leading edge of learning and new ways of doing things!

Wilson Parking have provided our Garret St car park and soon this will be another Wellington location nearby. This is an important park for Cityhop because this and the previous Customs Street car park are open air and very visible. One of the challenges for carshare in New Zealand is that we are usually in car parks. People who use buses trains or walk don’t see us and don’t know there is an alternative to car ownership. So being on-street or in an open air car park and sitting practically on the pavement is important visibility for us. Thank you Wilson Parking.

Last month, Cooper & Co who are responsible for the new attractive developments at Britomart and the rejuvenation of the Britomart area have got behind car share with a car park in their new car park.

And of course, Auckland Transport has recently given cityhop 10 onstreet car park spaces.

Thank you supporters.

As a little girl I used to stay with Shirley Smith, one of NZ’s first barristers, and she was a huge fan of Unicef. Every card she ever sent came from Unicef and it’s one of the rituals I have adopted. This Christmas as well as giving my step-grandchildren their usual Christmas present – usually a voucher to their favourite shop or some cash, I talked to their grandfather about adding  an inspired gift – a life-changing  gift for children.

Says Victoria Carter, Cityhop’s co-founder,”I’ll still be making a usual donation to the City Mission and I’m hunting down gifts for teenage boys to help them cater to this difficult age group in the gift giving category!

“I liked the idea of reminding children at Christmas how lucky they are. Unicef, World Vision and other charities all offer this inspired giving and there  are some wonderful ideas for giving, yes the goat is there, but there’s also water purification, therapeutic milk for starving babies, pencils, even soccer balls. You might have seen Jonah Lomu promoting it in a ghastly jumper, saying no to naff!”

Says the Unicef website, Inspired Gifts are life saving and life changing gifts distributed to children and communities around the world throughout the year.  Unicef buys vaccines for almost 60% of the world’s children, 3 billion doses a year, so by buying an inspired gift, like a polio vaccine gives 100 children the certainty of life without polio.

With gifts from $6 many people could easily add an inspired gift to their Christmas gift giving and make a difference. Think about it.

Thanks to Auckland Council and Auckland Transport, Cityhop today unveiled three onstreet car park spaces so Auckland City residents can now see how easy it is to live without a car. If you live near Hobson St, College Hill or Williamson Ave in Ponsonby, living without a car just got a whole lot easier. Says Victoria Carter, Co-founder, “we are thrilled to have a partnership with Auckland Transport, we have always believed we are part of a successful public transport mix with trains, buses, ferries, walking and biking. The reality is sometimes you need a car!”

Yes, for just $15 an hour including the FUEL, you can have access to smart eco-friendly wheels. See one of these links below and find out more about why, how and what is car share!

There has been quite a bit of press as a result!

NZ Herald thanks to Mathew Dearnaley 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10771168

Kiwi FM with Glenn Williams, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9GYKeOMjMM&list=UUgbm5in2RkVoXR4GsMSZ81A&feature=plcp&context=C242c2FDOEgsToPDskJk-fepgRc37z4zIkoXujc9

TV 3  http://www.3news.co.nz/New-car-sharing-scheme-hits-the-streets/tabid/423/articleID/235653/Default.aspx#top

Morning Report interviewed Sharon Hunter from Auckland Transport.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2504261/auckland-transport-launches-trial-to-encourage-car-sharing.asx

More to come!

Cityhop won the Sustainable Business Network’s Design & Innovation award last Tuesday. Thank you Pure Advantage and SBN. Sustainable Showcase, last Wednesday was an all day exhibition of samazing ways to be more sustainable at Shed 10 Queens Wharf. There are so many sustainable ways for us all to do better and greener!

On winning, Victoria Carter, CEO and Co-founder said, “This award is for all our members. Without them we wouldn’t be here. In particular thank you to EECA, Isthmus, AUT and Aecom, all the individuals who believe it is good to not own a car, that it is good to drive less and who make Auckland a more liveable city.”

HungryBins won the Judges Highly Commended prize. Cool worm farm we will write more about in another blog.

See sustainable.org.nz  for more. 

Cityhop will have a car on display to show people how easy it is to carshare and why they might like to consider it.

Come and meet  New Zealand businesses, government, community and non-profits leading the way towards a collective sustainable future.

When: Free public open day on 9th November

Where: Shed 10, Queens Wharf, Auckland

See  a 2 day celebration of sustainable business, technology, innovation and lifestyles. Spend a day in the life of our sustainable city, network, connect and learn from New Zealand’s sustainable champions and social innovators.