Cannon Beach now a Zipcar city

Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Zipcar, the online, membership-based car rental company, now has a designated parking space in Cannon Beach. The city’s decision to allocate a parking spot for the rental vehicles downtown makes Cannon Beach an official Zipcar city.

City Planner Rainmar Bartl said Cannon Beach has given rhe OK to a one-year experiment with Zipcar. He said some city officials were hesitant about giving up even one public parking space in the city’s downtown core, where parking is at a premium.

Currently the world’s largest car-sharing service, Zipcar has a loyal following of customer-members, or “zipsters.”

Zipsters can go online to reserve a car via cell phone or computer. Members use a dedicated “Zipcard” to unlock the car and drive it

Cannon Beach’s Zipcar connection cuold potentially make it easier for visitors to get around town when they’re visiting from Portland and other areas.

City Manager Richard Mays said the Zipcar parking spot is near the tennis courts downtown, and has been in use since May. He said Zipcar is getting used around town.

“We try to keep tabs on it,” he said. “I saw one driving on the street the other day.”

Zipcar Marketing Manager Caleb Miller told CRBJ last March that members of a Portland focus group of zipsters cited “going to the coast” as a top reason for renting a car from the company..

Zipcars are parked in designated spaces in cities nationwide. Available cars show up on online maps, thanks to built-in technology that electronically reports their whereabouts. Users rent cars by the hour or day, and return them to a designated Zipcar space when they are through using the vehicles.

Zipcar was founded in Massachusetts in 2000, and has 6,000 cars and approximately 300,000 members in around 50 U.S. cities. More info at zipcar.com.