Unzipped

I became car-free in the fall of 2007. I was pretty fond of my little buggy, a bright-blue New Beetle, but I've never for one second regretted the decision to go wheel-less. After all, I live in a city. Downtown. Mostly I can walk to things. Not that I'd take it these days, but there's ample public transportation. Although at the time I dumped my Beetle I was making trips to suburban clients with relative frequency, I really didn't need a car. 

It was easier to dump my car because there was Zipcar to fill the gap. Zipcar. Right on my doorstep.

So I joined. And immediately became a big fan, happy to promote this wonderful service to anyone who'd listen.

Want a car for a couple of hours? Just go online and find one nearby. Pick it up, using the no-human-contact-smartcard system, take off, and return it whenever you're done to a dedicated parking place you don't have to spend 45 minutes driving around looking for.

Once in a while, there was a screw up - the car I reserved wasn't there waiting for me - but Zipcar was, for the most part, an excellent idea, well-executed. 

I used Zipcar to go to Home Depot. To pick up my Christmas tree. To pick up my niece at school before she got her license.

Zipcar took me to meetings with clients, to baby showers, to birthday parties, to wakes. 

If I needed a car for a longer journey, or for overnight, I rented from Avis. But most of my car needs were satisfied by Zipcar. 

The biggest pain in the arse was when I was only going a few miles, but had to fill up the tank because the jerk who had it before me had left it at a teaspoon of gas over 1/4. (You're supposed to fill 'er up when you hit that mark.) Filling that tank was a pain because there aren't a ton of gas stations in the downtown Boston area. None near any of the places that housed Zipcars I used. So filling the tank often required extending my reservation by a half hour. Good Zipper that I was, whenever I had extra time on my reservation, and was near a gas station, I always tried to top off the tank for the next person. 

And then one day, when I was returning my Zip to its parking slot in the Boston Common Garage, a young woman who was also returning her Zip asked me if I'd heard of Uber.

No I had not.

She showed me the app on her phone, and I filed the info away for future reference.

Fast forward a few months, and I needed to get to jury service at an inconveniently located - as most of them are - Boston courthouse. I had no idea how long I'd be there, and checking out a Zipcar for an entire day would be expensive and probabl unnecessary, as the likelihood that I'd actually get stuck on a jury was low. So I downloaded Uber and away I went.

Suddenly, I was an Uber-er, not a Zipper. 

I Ubered to clients, to Home Depot, to birthday parties and baby showers, to visit friends. Even, yes, to a couple of wakes. For a while, I saw an acupuncturist in Cambridge. I Ubered there, then took a long, pleasant walk to the T for a T ride home.

Mostly I took the train (Trish) or T (Kath) when I went to see my sisters, but I started to Uber home from Kath's rather than have my brother-in-law drag out to drive me home after dinner. And if it was cold and dark, and I didn't want to wait in a cold, dark train station and then take a cold, dark walk home from North Station, I began taking an occasional Uber home from a visit to my sister in Salem. Sometimes I Ubered to Salem, too. When my cousin's husband was hospitalized in Worcester earlier this year - in the before time - I Ubered out there a couple of times. I knew it was worth it, and that getting a ride would be easy enough because I'd also Ubered out there for Christmas dinner.

Whatever the cost, however often I found myself Ubering, it was worth it. Even if I spent $100 a month - and that was my sweet spot, more or less - it was still a whole helluva lot cheaper than car ownership in Boston. 

Zipcar became a thing of the past. 

The last time I reserved a Zip was in December. There was a screw up. The car and location I had reserved was no longer available. I was directed to a parking lot that's a bit further away, and a lot more difficult to maneuver around in. (It's a funky, Art Deco parking lot from the 1920's, but was designed for flivvers, not Pierce Arrows or Duesenbergs.) I trotted over to get the car, but it was one of those new-fangled ones with the tricky way to turn it on, to shift, to steer, to do everything. Change for the sake of change. I realized right off that I wasn't going to be comfortable driving it, so I canceled my reservation. 

Although I'm still a member, that's been pretty much it for me and Zip.

If and when I go anyplace again, it will likely be via Uber.

Sometimes I think I'll miss Zipcar. Then again, maybe not.

Zipcar, it seems, has been falling down, with felling blows delivered by the disrupters at Uber and Lyft. But some of the downfall is self-inflicted. A company where the brand promise was great customer service - a instilling a feeling of (almost) community - is no longer keeping its customers as satisfied as it once did.

CNN recently contacted over a dozen Zippers:

They said that the car-sharing service's quality had deteriorated in recent months, and that some cars are especially dirty, or not even available when members arrive for reserved rentals, a trend they say has worsened since the pandemic. Zipcar apologized for the shortcomings in a statement to CNN Business and said it's taking steps to improve the service.

Some customers have had to scramble to get alternative transportation and were left in what they felt were unsafe situations, such as being stranded far from home without a way to get around...

And when things go wrong, customers interviewed by CNN Business say they rarely can get in touch with Zipcar customer support, even after waiting hours on the phone. Some longtime customers who once viewed Zipcar as so reliable and efficient that it could be a stand-in for owning a car, now say they want to cancel their membership, but haven't been able to because they find Zipcar is so hard to reach. Zipcar says users can request to cancel their memberships online, but customers told CNN Business they were unable to do so on the website, and had to call Zipcar's customer support line. (Source: CNN)

Zipcar (owned by Avis since 2013) has had a hefty layoff this year - said to be more than 20% of its staff. It could be worse: Avis overall has pink slipped or furloughed 70% of its employees in the wake of the pandemic. But a 20% decrease in staff could explain the dirty cars, the reservation screw ups, and the hours it's taking customers to get through the support. (Over the years, I've had to call Zipcar support on a number of occasions, and it was always prompt and first rate.)

Zipcar has responded to the wave of service complaints by promising to increase the number of service agents, but for some members, it might be too little, too late.

"It was working for 10 years — brilliantly in my opinion," said Zipcar customer Judi Rowland. "Basically I loved them until I hated them."

I'm not quite ready to totally cut things off with Zipcar. My membership's paid up for the remainder of the year, so the money's been spent. But as I approach the first anniversary of my last trying (and not succeeding) to use their service, I just may cancel. I'll feel badly. For years, Zipcar was there when I needed them. Plus they're a local company. But life, and transportation, goes on.

Me? Unzipped? Object in the mirror may be closer than it appears.