Car Clubs
by VivaVauxhall - November 21st, 2009.Filed under: Parking.
There are now two local car club locations. A bay for two cars in Langley Lane and run by Streetcar, another in Lawn Lane (where it meets South Lambeth Road) and operated by City Car Club.
Both locations currently have one car parked there and Streetcar intends to put the second car in Lawn Lane soon as the first one is already being sufficiently used.
The introduction of these car clubs has not gone smoothly and local residents have complained to Lambeth Council about lots of things including the fact that the bays were were taken out of use a long time before any car club cars at all appeared on the scene.
With regard to the point made that there are now 4 fewer parking places for residents, Lambeth Council say:
‘Regarding parking pressure, independent research … has shown that each Car Club vehicle removes at least 13 private cars from the road. As such, the parking pressure should not get any worse and may actually improve. Nevertheless, we are more than willing to carry out reviews of these bays if requested, but I would suggest that this that this takes place after three months at least so that meaningful data on the use of the car club vehicle can be obtained.’
Does anyone agree that the ‘13 private cars fewer’ is a meaningless statistic unless it can be viewed either in context of the area that each car serves or its relationship to a specific number of private cars? We’ve put this question to Lambeth Council with reference to the car club bays in Langley Lane and Lawn Lane and have yet to receive their reply.
Update 25 November
LC have come back on the ‘13 cars fewer’ question:
The figure of 13 private cars being removed from the road is comes from analysis of a survey of nearly 63 000 car club members of whom nearly 6000 responded. This gives a response rate of about 9.5%
The survey asked, amongst other things, about the number of cars owned by their household before joining the car club and the number owned at the time of the survey. Of those who responded to the survey,
Only 1.3% had increased the number of cars owned by their household since joining
39% had reduced their number of cars – a net reduction of 2369 vehicles across 5924 respondents
The rest (about 60%) had no change in the number of cars owned by the household
The survey also asked “If you had not joined a car club, would you have bought a private car?”
Around a quarter of members said they would have purchased a vehicle – a total of 1505 respondents
Overall Reduction in Private Cars
There is approximately 1 car club car to every 35 members
64,000 car club members (December 2008)
If the car reduction numbers are typical, this suggests a potential reduction of 25,293 private cars
- Allowing for the car club vehicles this equals 23,465 cars off the road
1 car club car = 13.8 private cars off the road
If you also account for the cars that were not purchased, these figures increase to 39,407 cars off the road;
- 1 car club car = 22.5 private cars off the road
Please find a link to the survey report below
http://www.carplus.org.uk/carplus/pdf/annualsurveyreport0809.pdf
November 21st, 2009 at 7:41 pm
One car, a blue Golf, was parked in Lawn Lane and was there for 11 days and was not moved unless someone was able to manoeuvre it into the identical angle and 2 feet from the edge of the bay which obviously is not possible. The statistic of 13 fewer cars is of course, as you say, completely meaningless and I would imagine from the council’s point of view impossible to justify.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:01 am
I personally think car clubs are a great idea to relieve congestion and pollution generally
November 22nd, 2009 at 7:25 am
Agreed, car clubs are a great idea – it’s just a pity that they had to be located locally before the parking review has taken place and hopefully freed up some more parking places.
Also the process of installing the car clubs was not handled well: some local residents were not consulted on this; communication with Lambeth Council to resolve certain issues has been ‘difficult’; the bays should not have been installed before there were car club cars to fill them; now that there are not residents’ cars parked there overnight and only one club car car per bay in use, the bays are used by a succession of other cars which disturbs local residents and a lot more litter is just chucked out of parked cars’ windows on to the street/pavement; the location of the car club in Lawn Lane is wrong and is a magnet for clubbers, minicabs and taxi touts; there is no nighttime enforcement to deter non car club cars from parking in these bays.
But as I said at the beginning, the idea of car clubs is a good one.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:33 am
Hi everyone, I work for Streetcar, one of the car clubs that have just had bays put into the Vauxhall area including the one of Lawn Lane. I appreciate that car clubs will not be for everyone so not everyone will think that they are a good use of space but there are a few things that I would say to hopefully at least clarify a few things:
- Streetcar now has 6,000 members in Lambeth and nearly 75,000 in London. The concept is proving hugely popular and is doubling in size nearly every year. In terms of the figure of 13 being meaningless - it is tricky. The reason that both local authorities and the Mayor have car clubs in their transport strategy is because of evidence showing the positive effect they are having. All car clubs have to ask their members to do an independent survey for TfL each year and the facts show that Londoners are selling their cars in significant numbers to join us. As car ownership becomes more and more expensive as well as a hassle, the prospect of having a car just when you need one looks increasingly appealing if we can make it convenient. The figure quoted comes from the last survey results that found that 39% of car club members had reduced the numbers of cars in their household since joining. A further % had also deferred a planned car purchase to join us. Combine this with public transport usage rising after joining and miles driven falling - the net effect is a very positive one.
- We put a car into the bay as soon as the permits were released to us. There is unfortunately always a lead time as usually the boroughs wait until all bays are completed before handing them over to the operators. In terms of why only one car so far. It is tricky, the concept is growing so quickly that matching supply and demand is a constant battle. Streetcar in Lambeth is growing at such a rate that it made more sense for the council to give us two bays with one car going in now and the second after Christmas. Given the issues that we understand occur in the area due to the nearby nightclub, we have now applied for the second permit and as soon as this has been received will place the second car.
- Usage - I appreciate that whatever I say, it will be greeted with scepticism by those who want to greet it with scepticism but the car has been is use solidly every weekend since it has gone in and in total has had bookings 16 days out of 23 so far this month. For a new location this is very good and will improve as members get used to it being there.
Hope this helps.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Car Clubs are, perhaps, a great idea, so long as they are not on your street. The problem in the case of the one on Lane Lane is that empty bays attract a stream of touts and taxis at unsociable hours in the sure knowledge that there are no supervised controls in the small hours to regulate them. My concern is not the scheme in itself, but the abysmal manner in which it has been implemented by the Borough. No consultation and even less foresight regarding the problems that, since implementation, has affected residents’ quality of life.
The guy from Streetcar has a vested commercial interest in defending the scheme with usage figures that we cannot hope to verify. Nonetheless, if the reserved bays have cars occupying them, or are located in areas less conveniently accessed by patrons of the club on South Lambeth Road, then that might provide a partial solution to the disturbance issue, given that the problems encountered are linked, up to now, to the bays being almost permanently empty. Streetcar customers are not responsible for this, I admit, on the contrary, it is the fact that empty parking bays are used by unauthorised vehicles at times when many people are trying to sleep at night.
November 25th, 2009 at 9:43 am
With today’s update and reply from LC, we learn for the first time that this analysis is of ‘car club members only’, which to me makes it incredibly selective and this should have been stated right at the outset. The impression being given before was that ‘generally’ one car in every thirteen on the road was being given up. Totally misleading.
December 8th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Danny - the purpose survey was to find out the effect of car club membership on vehicle ownership amongst members.
Why would conducting the survey amongst car club members only be biased? What would be the point in asking a non-car club member the question “Has joining a car club prompted you to sell your car?”