The Car2Go service has proven popular with many Calgarians but not everyone is jumping on board the transportation trend.
For the last three months you've likely seen a lot of those little blue and white smart cars in the downtown core.
The Car2Go program was introduced on July 21 and was launched with 150 cars.
The program has become so successful that the company is expanding and adding more cars to the mix.
Alan Ta uses Car2Go almost every day and says in a week he only spends about $40 on his commute.
“For convenience, especially in the downtown core, I travel a lot around downtown and I live in Bridgeland, so it's actually cheaper for me to take a Car2Go from my house to work than to take the train,” said Ta.
More than 15,000 people have registered with Car2Go but not everyone is happy about the jump in, drive away, drop off service.
Laura Di Santo has lived in St. Andrew's Heights in the northwest since the 1970s.
She took part in the application process for permitted parking in the neighbourhood because they were being inundated with parking from Foothills Medical Centre which is across the street.
She noticed a parking problem with the little cars right away and has contacted the various city departments to voice her concerns.
“I’ve had email with the traffic engineering department, Calgary Parking Authority which told me that it’s really the city that has issued these broad permits,” said Di Santo.
Car2Go and the Calgary Parking Authority have an agreement that allows the vehicles to park on the street or in the authority's parkades.
“When we receive complaints or we observe vehicles that are in potentially in violation, we notify Car2Go. They're quite responsive in moving those vehicles as best they can. They have staff on hand to do that,” said Miles Dyck from the Calgary Parking Authority.
The City’s Roads Department handles residential areas and also has an agreement with the car service that allows members to park in permitted zones.
Laura Di Santo says the smart cars typically fill up all the spots around her home and she is getting frustrated.
“I found that not only were there multiple vehicles taking up very limited parking space on this street but they also, contrary to what some people may believe, they stayed for hours,” said Di Santo.
Jennifer Thompson-Goldberg is with the city’s Roads Department and says they haven’t had a high volume of complaints but they are getting a lot of feedback.
“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback and we have had some residents finding that there are Car2Gos parked in their residential area and we uinderstand that that is certainly a concern. We’re not encouraging Car2Go members to park necessarily anywhere specifically. We have encouraged Car2Go members to be conscious and be a good neighbour, if you see a Car2Go parked in an area, don't park right next to it, there are some do's and don'ts and we have that information posted on our City of Calgary news blog,” said Thompson-Goldberg.
The Calgary Parking Authority along with the City of Calgary and Car2Go will meet at the end of this month to review the program.
“311 is our main gauge of how we can get feedback from residents so of course contact 311 if you are having some issues and that’s the best way to get a hold of us,” said Thompson-Goldberg.
The city says they will look at the pros and cons of the program and gather feedback from users and residents to see if any changes need to be made to the parking agreement.
Car2Go says its studies show that the little smart cars reduce CO2 emissions and free up traffic and parking spaces in the downtown core.