Imagine what cart corals at the supermarket would look like if shopping carts didn’t nest together. Imagine what the entryway of the supermarket would look like if shopping baskets didn’t stack. This would be poor spatial planning on the designers part. Next, image what a parking lot could look like if our cars stacked? We all of the sudden will have a plethora of open space, hmmm why didn’t we think of this earlier?

The first innovative step towards stacking cars was the parking structure, where layers of cars could be stacked upon each other. The next innovative step is to actually stack cars up against each other to reduce the absurd amount of space we require for vehicular parking. The concept is a hybrid of car sharing systems, spatial planning, alternative fueling systems, and personal convenience.

Developed by MIT Media Lab students from the Concept Car Design Workshop sponsored by GM, the key behind this concept is the redesign of the wheel and axel. Rather than having a rigid axel, it will actually fold in a way that will allow the car to rotate upwards 90 degrees. In this, the long dimension of the vehicle is perpendicular to the ground while parked. Since each car has the same form and design, they perfectly nest together to reduce surface space consumption. The stackable car will be able to reduce required curbside parking space by about a third to a half. This allows for more sidewalk space, biking lanes, and comfortable city conditions.

Due to the small dimensions, the stacks of cars will be conveniently placed in locations all over the city- where you would normally come out of a building and hail a cab; you can jump in an electric city car and advance to your next desired location. The concept City Car system includes solar paneling on the rooftops of buildings adjacent to the stackable parking depositories. These panels will be the power supply to charge the electric cars while parked.

This car-sharing concept is a solution to the missing link between public transportation and the front door. Often people don’t use public transit due to the time necessary to switch from the subway to the bus to the next bus. Now people can commute into the city, get off the train, jump in a city car, and drive that extra three to ten miles to the office. This is a reasonable solution to a very prevalent problem. Instead of unnecessarily consuming a parking space while in the office all day long, you can use a city car in the morning and evening, while others use it all afternoon; and the convenience of hopping in a city car is what will make this work. In addition, since these cars aren’t personal vehicles and people will be in them on an average of five to thirty minutes, hopefully the new system will encourage people to share rides across town thus influencing our sense of community, status, and ownership.

Do you have a car on your block that always seems to be parked in the same spot? It collects dust on dry weeks, and disguises itself under a mountain of snow in the winter. Well if you said yes, this vehicle is the victim of what I call “owners neglect." If this black diamond urban ski mountain is your car, never fear; there is now a solution to this situation that is growing rapidly in urban/semi-urban areas.

Many of us own a car for the convenience of using it a couple times a week: to go to the grocery, to go to a concert across town, to get to a dentist appointment early in the morning, or to get out of town for a weekend. Wouldn’t it be easy if you could walk a block and pick up a shared car whenever you need it, and never worry about the upkeep?. This concept is called a car-sharing or car co-op program. You pay a monthly fee, based on your expected use, to employ the service. With the service, the company maintains and services the vehicles, fills ‘em up, takes care of insurance, clean them out, and reserves a parking spot for you when you’re done. This saves you lots of time, money, stress, and reduces the number of bills you have to pay. Here is why it’s important, the car is useful to you on the days you need it, and it is useful to others in the alternate time slots. In some cites these car-sharing programs are even employing fleets of hybrids only. And it is still affordable!
Let me break it down for you. Following are some insight as to why this system benefits you, the community, and the environment.

Individual benefits:

• The tank is always full = time saver
• No insurance bills to pay = less bills in the mail
• A parking spot is always reserved at the end of your day = time saver
• Your car is always well maintained = money and time saver
• Lower theft risk= lower blood pressure, money saver
• No scraping snow off the windshield in the wee small hours of the morning = time saver
• No more waiting in lines at the car wash = time saver
• No more looming responsibility of getting that darn oil changed= time saver, lower blood pressure

Community Benefits:

• Traffic ease: Drivers are only on the street when they need to be; therefore convenience is no longer a scapegoat.
• Fewer cars on the street = less street space required for parking spots: Imagine if every city street had one more lane because we didn’t request it for parking?
• Less parking lots = greater allowance for green space, bicycle lots…healthy public space
• Community members are sharing with each other, which raises the overall “feel-good” factor.

Environmental Benefits:

• There is a lower demand for individually owned cars which results in fewer cars manufactured annually and more cars maintained.
• As vehicles are serviced more frequently and monitored with precision, they will last longer, be safer to drive, and maintain optimal gas mileage.
• If we all participate is a car sharing program and reduce the number of cars on the streets, you might wonder what would happen to the (American) car industry. The car industry could instead switch to a service based supply of cars, parts, and maintenance. Ex: Ford would directly deal with Zip Car. This form of business will keep older cars running well, and reduce our impact of the dead end system where they sell/ we buy-and the relationship is over.
• When the current fleet of cars is bumped down to the 2nd or 3rd tier fleet in 5 or 10 years the affordability will increase, and again, these cars will still be leading a healthy life.

So choose your path. Saving time is money in your pocket, driving less is always better, and sharing makes you feel good.

Here are a couple of Car-Share programs in the US:

Bi-Coastal: http://www.flexcar.com/

Bi-Coastal: http://www.zipcar.com/

Bay Area: http://www.citycarshare.org/

Chicago: http://www.igocars.org/