Program offers hourly car rentals in downtown St. Louis

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The thousands of people who car pool or take light rail or the bus to work in downtown St. Louis have always faced one drawback: When they need a car, they don't have one.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car and supporters of mass transit unveiled a solution on Tuesday: Rental cars, available on an hourly basis, placed at various locations around downtown.

The program is called WeCar, and organizers say it's aimed at both providing convenience for downtown workers and residents, and helping to improve the environment by limiting the number of cars on the roads. Also, all nine rental cars are hybrids.

Tom Shrout, executive director of Citizens for Mass Transit, said the program "will provide people who take transit to work or live downtown the freedom of having an automobile without the hassle and expense of driving and parking downtown."

Getting to work downtown got even harder in January when the Missouri Department of Transportation closed a 4-mile stretch of Interstate 64 in west St. Louis County for major repairs. The shutdown is expected to last a full year; next year, another 4-mile stretch closes.

The highway shutdown has led to an increase in users of mass transit.

Those interested in the program pay a $35 annual membership fee. Nine Toyota Prius hybrids are parked at spots throughout downtown. Members can go online at www.WeCar.com/stl and book a reservation.

The vehicles are accessed electronically. Members get a PIN code and receive through the mail a small device that can be held over a panel of a WeCar's windshield that unlocks the doors. Inside the car, a keypad sits inside the glove compartment. Customers type in the PIN number that came with the reservation, releasing the car key locked inside the keypad.

When the user is finished, he or she parks the car back in the original spot.

Just last month, Enterprise launched a similar WeCar program at Washington University in St. Louis. The company also offers hourly rentals in several cities, including Chicago, New York and Washington, but the St. Louis effort is the first where everything from the booking to accessing the car is done electronically.

Suburban St. Louis-based Enterprise is the largest vehicle rental company in the country. Enterprise rents at airports but is best known for renting vehicles to those with cars in the shop or needing a loaner for vacation.

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On the Net:

Enterprise Rent-A-Car: www.enterprise.com