This is part of a series of articles on Electrifying Transportation.
My wife and I came to visit Oregon several years ago, and we fell in love with it here. I’ve seen a lot of places, and Portland is such a beautiful city. We love the parks and the neighborhoods. So we moved here from Colombia, where we’re from, and we’re raising three kids here.
I was excited to learn about a new car electric vehicle share program that Hacienda CDC and Forth are running. It’s a pilot program that my family can participate in because we live at one of Hacienda’s affordable housing properties. I have gotten to know the folks at Hacienda because I like to care of the properties, to paint, clean graffiti and such. We rent, but this is our home. One of our values is to leave the places we go better than we found them.
With the car share program, we don’t need to have two cars. Most of the time, we only need one car, even with three kids. I like to get exercise while I commute so I ride my bike to work. It’s part of my training as a triathlete. So it works well for us to rent a clean, electric car for just $10 a day when we need it.
It’s much cheaper to own just one car and use the electric car share when we need it. We’re starting to look at buying a house, so keeping our costs low by owning just one car is important. The car share is helpful for the times we both need to use a car. Also, when friends come to visit, we can use the car share while our friends borrow ours.
An electric vehicle is better than gas-powered car. It’s cleaner, and it’s a good option for around town. There are two cars available, and one even has a car seat, which is great for a family like mine. And because the program is a pilot, I have been able to provide input to make the program better. For example, I recommended that they install some lighting and a camera as a preventive measure because the parking lot was dark, and I saw that they are doing that.
We like to volunteer and be a part of the community, and we’re happy to be participating in this EV car share pilot program.
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More information about the EV Car Share Pilot Program is available on Hacienda CDC’s website and in a Climate Solutions blog post, Cully neighborhood test drives electric car sharing.
