In response to Carole's comment that Flexcar should just operate the system...that was my initial thinking when I started to work with Portland Carsharing on the City of Vancouver's EPA proposal for a public fleet of shared hybrid cars and electric bikes (aka 'GreenFleet') in 2001...we then won the demonstration grant but Flexcar (new owner of Portland Carsharing) was not interested in dabbling in shared bikes during the period of our grant (2002-2005).

Now that Flexcar will no longer exist...they just merged with Zipcar...perhaps there is an opportunity to rethink Portland's public shared fleet that would include cars, bikes, trucks, bakfiets, bike parking with transit passes...a complete package.

Perhaps this could be Portland's next big contribution to car sharing in the US.

[Also in response to Carole's comment...so far the operating model of bike sharing is more trip flexible than the US car sharing model allows...as it allows 'one way' trips to be booked. US car sharing firms have fidgeted with this European concept for over 6 years but it has not been implimented system wide yet. Perhaps this could be a new requirement for renewal of Flexcar/Zipcar's MOU with the CoP?]