$66 a day rental just for free parking is still exorbitant compared to driving your own vehicle and avoiding downtown like the plague that it's become.

Of course, with Metro planning on routing exorbitant LRT down the center of all major arterials in the metro area, and the resulting rezoning, demolition, and densification of the suburbs to follow, subsidized of course, the only choice left may be to escape before it's too late.

Do Sam and Randy get free cars AND free parking?
Somebody's got some 'splainin' to do!

Just to continue the wonkery, the permit price is based on an estimate of how much time the little blue and white cars will spend at meters (the vast majority of parking in the areas they serve is unmetered).

The cars have GPS tracking, so the company has to report to PBOT how much time they are actually at meters, and PBOT has the option to adjust the fees after six months.

And the trick to take advantage of this is to end your rental at meter (not to park at one during your rental), so you're not paying car2go 35 cents a minute while you're parked, which is way more than the meter charges.

I would gladly pay under $100/mo to park downtown instead of the $90 for a Trimet pass and taking MAX. My commute time would be cut in half if I could drive.

The point isn't that this parking deal benefits those who rent these little cars. Rather, it's simply not fair for a private company to get a sweet backroom deal that nobody else can get, especially in an era of increased metered parking, public and private parking tickets, and other policies that discourage car use. It's outrageous and hypocritical.

But sweet backroom deals that no one else can get are one of those things that make today's Portland "iconic".

If the Sam/Rand twins want to continue down the road of implementing their backroom derived socialistic/autocratic agenda against car ownership, people who drive their own cars should just boycott downtown Portland and other places that have parking meters. For the most part, there is nothing downtown that can’t be found elsewhere, except maybe for the Portland Public Toilets known as the loos. When Fireman Randy finally leaves City Hall behind, he really deserves the honor of receiving a memento for his time in office - a well used toilet seat! Just call it art and Sammyboy might want one too.

Zipcar - another private company - has its own reserved parking spots all over downtown.

And Zipcar pays for those spots as well - which of course are dedicated 24/7, even when the Zipcar is out being used.

Car2go just worked out a different method of paying for it. And as long as this method is based on a market rate for the actual usage - as verivied by the GPS units and competent auditors - what's the issue here?

Nobody and John, the Zipcar arrangement isn't an obvious public good either. The devil's in the details on all these cases. See my 2006 letter published in Willamette Week: http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-5868-letters_to_the_editor.html (or, with links, here: http://peteforsyth.wordpress.com/2006/07/26/no-free-ride-for-flexcar/ )