I am a proud zipcar member not only for its convenience, but also for its green aspects. I also love the fact that, as a member I feel part of a company dedicated to serving the community within and outside of zipcar. I am a professional musician/violin teacher and I use zipcar to get from one teaching job/performance/rehearsal to another, not just errands and pleasure. I live in Brookline (where car-owner's parking is a nightmare) and need to drive to Weston, Dedham, Melrose and Chestnut Hill on a weekly basis. Or I will have one gig in one part of town and a rehearsal an hour later in another. Needless to say I use zipcar quite a bit and am spending more and more on it each month (and I have not even been to the grocery store!). I have seriously contemplated buying a car, but am terrified of the burdens and expense (parking) car ownership brings. I have been thinking of an idea that I would like zipcar to think about seriously. A program for frequent users (like self-employed people) that use zipcar primarily for work would be ideal, and I think would attract more car-needing users. Zipcar could calculate a monthly fee, say $300, which would include a certain amount of miles and hours. Any miles/hours over this ammount would incur the regular usage fees for that particular car. I have spent on average $400 a month on zipcar. While this may still be less than owning a car, I don't feel like the fee schedule is set up for or attractive to frequent users. And if I could afford it, I would drive a zipcar more days a week instead of borrowing friends cars or taking routes full of bus ride, T and commuter rail combinations. Please write back with a response, I would love to hear from Zipcar on this matter. Thank you, Betsy Hinkle P.S. how about an equity program?

-- Anonymous, February 04, 2003