HOBOKEN – The City of Hoboken has been encouraging residents to use street parking less often and rely more on options like Zipcar – a service that places more than 40 cars parked on city streets for residents to rent for hours or days at a time. The service makes it easy because the cars include insurance, 180 miles per day for free, and free gas refills. The price does not include sales tax or the small domestic security fee.
When Zipcar won the city’s contract last year to provide the service, they agreed that 25 to 30 percent of the cars would start at $9.75 on weekdays and that some would be $12.75 on weekends, a spokesperson for the company confirmed this week.
However, a look at several months appears to show that on weekends, the $12.75 cars are only available in Manhattan, and occasionally in Jersey City. Cars in Hoboken on weekends appear to start at $14 to $15 per hour, rising to $24 per hour or more.
Starting at the end of last week, the Reporter has exchanged emails with Zipcar inquiring as to whether rates have gone up since this time last year, and whether the lower priced cars will be available.
Last year, a Reporter story about Zipcar getting the contract dated Sept. 20, stated,
“An online search revealed that a Zipcar from Monday through Thursday started at $14.75 per hour and $101 per day, and weekend rates — including just renting a car on Friday — start at $16.75 per hour and $164 per day. This was more than Hertz’s rates often were. When [Zipcar was] asked whether they were looking to decrease rates moving forward, Fatone said after a press conference on Thursday, ‘[As] part of the program we have cars at promotional rates, inexpensive rates that can be driven hourly.’ He said that 25 to 30 percent of the fleet would be available to members at $9.75 an hour ‘to make sure we do offer an inexpensive vehicle.’ A check by the Reporter on Friday showed that indeed, many of the rates [in 2015] had been changed to either $9 or $10 per hour, including on weekends.”
But this has not been the case on weekends for the last several months.
Traveling to Manhattan to rent a car would require a train, bus, or ferry ride.
We asked Zipcar to point us toward the $12.75 per hour Zipcars available in Hoboken on upcoming weekends, or on weekends as far ahead as December. We will post the information if the cars are available or become available in the future.
In the meantime, if our readers were able to find $12.75-per-hour Zipcars on weekends in Hoboken in the last few months, please email us to let us know at editorial@hudsonreporter.com. If you have other comments or experiences, please let us know as well.