Car sharers are on the hunt for parking in a neighborhood near you.

By Matthew Hirsch

IT TOOK AN auto tycoon and a dot-com executive to confirm what many of us already knew about car sharing: It could utterly change the way people get from one place to another in the Bay Area.

The concept is pretty simple. You sign up as a car-share member, and soon you're given access to more sets of wheels than you'll probably own in a lifetime.

Most companies give members an electronic device that's programmed to unlock their cars, and many offer a choice of hybrids, trucks, and convertibles. You go online or call to reserve the car that best suits your needs, then head to the spot where it's parked, hop in, and drive away.

Car sharing in San Francisco has been growing steadily since transportation innovators launched City Car Share (415-995-8588, www.citycarshare.com) four years ago. But with the recent arrival of two for-profit companies, Seattle-based Flexcar (415-282-3539, www.flexcar.com) and Boston-based Zipcar (415-848-2518, www.zipcar.com), car sharing has suddenly become a hot, new growth industry backed by venture capital funds.

Flexcar even attracted financial support from AOL pioneer Steve Case and former Chrysler chair Lee Iacocca, who both sit on the company's board. If such industry captains are banking on the success of car sharing, competition is likely to be fierce.

There are, believe it or not, more than 600,000 parking spaces in San Francisco, all seemingly occupied by somebody else's wheels at any given time. For the three companies now jockeying for dominance in the local car-share market, the trick will be getting spots reserved for their vehicles close to where people live and work.

If you go looking for shared cars today, you'll find most of them clustered in downtown parking garages and near transit corridors. This means members sometimes take a bus or train to pick up their car, which may be too inconvenient for the general population.

In other large cities where Flexcar and Zipcar already have a foothold, those companies have started working with public officials and community groups to set aside curbside parking spaces, for shared cars only, in densely populated areas. Curbside parking is attractive for car-sharing companies because it's highly visible, it's safe, and for nearby residents it's almost as convenient as owning a car.

How would curbside parking help Flexcar, a company that has just 25 cars in San Francisco but plans for an expansion next year? "We would be able to increase our fleet immediately," says Dana Beard, general manager of Flexcar's SF operation.

But to get curbside parking in the city, it'll take much more than circling the block until a space opens up. First, Flexcar, Zipcar, and City Car Share have to convince San Francisco's powerful neighborhood groups to give curbside car sharing a shot.

So far, there's been little talk of the idea in the Castro, one of the city's worst parking nightmares, says Adam Hagen, head of the Castro residents' association. And though car sharing might alleviate traffic congestion, he says some people would resist if it leaves fewer spots for their own cars.

Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith says it took a full year to get the community on board before curbside parking became available in Arlington, Va. It took even longer in Washington, DC.

"My hope is to cut that down to months in San Francisco," says Griffith, who's aiming to have 100 cars here by the end of the year. That would equal the number of cars at City Car Share.

Meanwhile, City Car Share has expansion plans of its own, but it's been much more cautious about curbside parking. That's because some neighborhoods aren't interested, says Rick Hutchinson, who joined City Car Share as CEO in August.

"When it comes to on-street parking, I think we have to be very, very careful," Hutchinson says. "We don't want to destroy the goodwill we built over five years here because of overzealousness."

The competing views on curbside parking highlight the differences between the for-profit companies and City Car Share, which charges a mileage fee for driving. (The charge offsets City Car Share's lower hourly rates. But unlike its competitors, City Car Share asks for a $300 deposit up front and charges higher membership fees – $10 per month compared to Flexcar's and Zipcar's standard $50 annual fee.)

Together, though, the three companies are hoping San Francisco drivers will soon get used to a little more sharing.

"We see no reason," Hutchinson says, "why car share can't be within a 10-minute walk of virtually everybody in the city."