The Indianapolis Star recently brought on board a new columnist to take the place of Erika Smith. Suzette Hackney finds her way to Indianapolis from Detroit by way of Cleveland just like Smith, and her commentary is just as head-scratching as Smith's proved to be during her short tenure at The Star. Hackney discredited herself in an earlier column on the issue of Blue Indy when she chastised folks who have problems with the fact that our mayor illegally awarded the French company with a 15-year monopoly on the right to offer electric car sharing services in Indianapolis, along with public assets reaching well into the tens of millions of dollars to subsidize its operations.
Today she pens a column ostensibly for the purpose of selling Indianapolis residents on the value of the service after she took one of the cars for a spin on its inaugural day this week. After reading about her experience, there's little she had to convey about her experience that would entice anyone to want to run out and rent one. She begins by telling us about how convenient and easy it was for her to sign up for the service online at home, which she says took her about twenty minutes. But when she attempted to reserve a car to rent at a charging station nearest to her home, she learned she couldn't do it. That's when she learned after waiting around a few hours and trying again later that she could only enroll to use the service by driving to one of two locations downtown where there are kiosks.
So Hackney has to get in her car, drive downtown, find a parking space near one of the two kiosks and find out why she couldn't reserve a car from home. When she entered the kiosk to enroll, she was directed by an ambassador for Blue Indy, who helped her connect via a video Internet connection to another ambassador in Paris, France to assist her in enrolling for the service. The ambassador required her to repeat the entire process she spent twenty minutes at home earlier in the day doing while stood in a kiosk in the sweltering heat. Finally, she says Jorge (the ambassador) helped her secure the membership card she required to rent a Blue Indy car.
As she proceeded to run several errands with a Blue Indy car, she watched as the meter clicked ticking away at 40 cents per minute. Because the cars are electric and make no noise, she said a feature that's supposed to cause the car to chirp so pedestrians and bicyclists know your car is approaching them was not functioning. When she attempted to listen to the car's radio, there was a ticking noise that sounded louder than the music, another glitch that was yet to be worked out in the car.
Surprisingly, Hackney was pleased with the service. Not even the shock of a $72 bill after only three hours of use seemed to bother her. "Overall, the BlueIndy experience is just what I expected it to be — a convenient, green and relatively inexpensive way to make short trips around town," she wrote. "I had the car for nearly three hours, and it cost me $72." Ouch! "Most folks wouldn’t or shouldn’t keep the car that long — it’s not meant to be a long-term rental option," she added. "New transportation technology has arrived in Indy, and even on the first day was mostly at its finest," she concluded. Where in the hell does Gannett find these people?
19 comments:
The very few persons who actually purchase The Indianapolis Star let alone read the garbage liner will find it amazing "The Hack" could list vehicle dysfunctions as she has, mention the outlandish cost of the damn thing, and then conclude it's everything wonderful she thought it would be before she wrote Ballard's free advertisement for his pig in a poke joke on the City. The poke WE are being slave-forced to pay for.
The hourly cost of these illegal rental cars is not the issue but think about it... even if you DID need an illegal Blue Indy rental car for three hours a day every day, $72 (three hours) x 30 days in a month= $2,160 monthly car payment notwithstanding the outrageous car taxes and insurance costs politicians piled on us. Do you know what the hell you can buy if you had an "allowance" or available money like that to burn? Jeez...
I suggest all the City County Councilors get in these tacky looking toy cars and ride into the sunset never to return. Who needs a Council let alone this spineless group we are now cursed with?
That's hilarious. All that time, hassle, and money and she still thinks its a great deal for Indianapolis? She must be getting the same kickbacks as the politicians.
Suckery bleu- statism! It's an obscenely overpriced delivery vehicle, for duh Scar.
The operant conditioned / trained monkeys of Washington DeCeit don't sell anything but swamp land...
Consider the source...
1. "Journalists" are now social justice warriors. Anything that fits in with a "green" agenda - irrespective of price, legality, or cost effectiveness - gets their support.
2. The Star might get paid by Blue Indy for creating the article.
3. Mainstream media supports big government projects because without Big Government and its non-stop goosing of the econonmy (via SIRP and deficits), GCI stock would drop back down into the $2 range.
Also consider the insanity of this project - it meshes perfectly with Ballard's idiotic solar panels at the airport, which are terribly inefficient, and generate electricity at about 25 cents per kwh.
What is she smoking, you can lease a small compact car from National Car Rental for much less than $72 for the day....
Not much of a reporter is she.
Question: Are the Blue Indy vehicles safe and/or legal?
According to a June 19th Advance Indiana post, "[John] Storm also learned the French-made electric vehicles have not been approved for highway use in the United States by the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. The cars were only granted a temporary permit to be used in the U.S. for demonstration purposes under an import waiver. As it stands today, the vehicles cannot be used by the public unless an employee of Blue Indy accompanies the driver. They don't have passenger-side airbags. They don't have braking systems or bumpers that meet federal standards. The batteries used by the cars are yet to be tested and certified."
I read all these AI comments and am again vindicated that the people have far more sense and intelligence than our career politicians give credit.
The people are light years ahead of a City County Council so far behind the eight ball when it comes to the political corruption and pay-to-play deals they allege to be against. I continue to wonder why we have a City County Council when we the people see in the broad light of day that the Council is unable, or unwilling, to bring a halt to corruption and lawlessness at the highest municipal levels.
Sharing the well-thought out and true Advance Indiana articles with my growing base on Facebook at Stop Blue Indy NOW provides me FB tools which show me that of the public I reach, the people are disgusted and see through every bit of subterfuge the politicians toss out to cover themselves.
Hey, here is a novel idea: Our career politicians, most more worried about their re-election than about what the people want, might consider it better to stop throwing shade and start talking truth.
You're right Anon 12:20, she rents her mind; a sublease arrangement / derangement of indoctrinate, fascism as fashion, check off list, statism.
Assuming Anon 9:18's numbers are accurate; consider the excess or waste of personal resources (which would include an expense of fossil fuels other than coal to produce electricity), required to pay an excessive rental car fee of $72 vs. the real world market rate for a legitimate rental car.
Constitutionally, economically & practically (engineering, etc.), Blue Indy is a high net polluter.
From the Hack >>> "Overall, the BlueIndy experience is just what I expected it to be — a convenient, green and relatively inexpensive way to make short trips around town," she wrote. "I had the car for nearly three hours, and it cost me $72." <<<<
Huh, inexpensive by the standards of what??? $24 an hour is inexpensive??? I suppose it is when the tab is on you expense account. "Green" well the production of electricity is hardly "green" or did that fact escape you. Convenient, after driving downtown to park (mileage on your expense account), waiting for someone in France to take your "order" and then paying your parking fee for your car (probably on your expense account.
This column reminds me of old story (not real) when the Soviet Union still existed to demonstrate Soviet Propaganda. > An American and Soviet Car lined up for a race. The American Car easily won and the Soviet Car finished last in second place. The following was the Soviet Press Release - The Soviet Car finished second and the American Car finished next to last.
I suppose The Star will require Hack to write another article in the near future where all the problems she had are ironed out.
Just when you thought the Gannett trash here in Indy couldn't stoop lower....they found a way to lower the bar!!!
This news piece (lol) is a harbinger of agenda 21 things to come (ie insanely expensive personal travel).
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/11/19/what-is-agenda-21-after-watching-this-you-may-not-want-to-know/
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/one-world-one-vision-2050.html
She must be ebullient about escaping the 17% tax on the other rental car services. Sorry taxpayers, you lose again.
How ironic for all the so-called "environmentalists" who have so little idea of that which they proclaim.
The more we learn, the more literature we research, the more we see the very real probability that illegal Blue Indy battery powered rental cars pose safety hazards and have a larger carbon footprint than even the unfairly-and-oft-derided SUV's!
Way to go, Greg. You got what you wanted- your rental car business competing with Hertz, Avis, and Budget- but at a more deleterious environmental consequence... not to mention the dangers posed to the neighborhoods in which you forced your rental car business chargers to be placed.
Rah, Indy. Rah, rah. Living here is like being trapped in a purgatorial high school.
Looks like Enterprise will rent you a compact car for about $45/day so if you put $27 or less in the gas tank you could have it for 24 hours for the cost of 3 on this thing.
I agree with Josh - it's all about Agenda 21. It begins the mind-conditioning to accept that your transportation will provided at a cost decided by crony government, and with rules dictated to you (where and when you're allowed to drive, etc.) It dovetails into the the public transportation initiatives (another expensive solution that no one asked for but will have to pay for.) It will become cost-prohibitive to own your own car, and your own home, because of the demonization of having a "footprint". The bike/car sharing and condensed housing trends should be rejected by the public.
Anon 11:55: Yes- the establishment suffers from arrested development; stalled out in high school.
Here is an interesting article.................
http://gas2.org/2015/09/02/whats-really-going-on-over-at-blue-indy/
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