PhillyCarShare adds monthly fees

PhillyCarShare recently announced that it has added a monthly fee for its services.

According to an e-mail sent to customers, the company began to "streamline" their services into a monthly plan on May 1.

Members who pay the $15-dollar monthly fee will get "the lowest PhillyCarShare hourly rates" - from $3.55 to $8.55 an hour. The 5-cent reduction in hourly rate will continue through July.

Basic Freedom members' memberships were automatically converted to the new plan, called the Philadelphia Plan, on April 30. The $15 was automatically charged to their credit cards.

PhillyCarShare, a popular service among Penn students because of its convenience and affordable prices, may become less used as a result of the changes.

College junior Emily Belfer and her housemates have used the service for outings to the movies. Now that a monthly fee is mandatory, "we will probably not still use it," she said.

She added that since many of her friends have cars on campus, she would find other ways to reach her destinations.

Still, "as a freshman, I might still use it," Belfer said.

College freshmen Rachel Baker and Rachel Grosser, who travel via PhillyCarShare to their job as Hebrew school teachers, use the service for five hours each Sunday and three hours on Tuesdays.

Their employers told them "it was too expensive to fully cover it," Grosser said. "Now we cover part of it."

The service has, for the most part, been to Baker's satisfaction.

"Sometimes there'll be something wrong with the car - such as problems with the acceleration - but usually it's fine," she said.

Even though there is now a compulsory fee, "I would still use it on my own," Baker added. "It would not be a hindrance because it's not that expensive."

PhillyCarShare representatives did not return calls for comment.

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