Seattleites looking to drop in on the Capitol Hill neighborhood for a Friday night show have a new way to avoid surge-priced ride-hailing services or the battle for street parking.
ReachNow, BMW’s car-sharing service that competes with Car2Go, announced Wednesday that it will now offer a dedicated parking lot in the busy neighborhood each Friday evening in March. The “Drop Zone” will be next to Rancho Bravo Tacos on Pine Street — “in the heart of Capitol Hill,” as the company describes it.
To use it, you simply drive into the parking lot, look for a spot labeled ReachNow and drop the car off. But be warned — if you roll later into the night, you might be out of luck. The Drop Zone is only open from 6 to 10 p.m.
The company touts the new feature as a way to make it easier for people to access Seattle music. The Drop Zone is part of a series of features to make it easier to get to concerts — look for something similar at the upcoming Upstream concert.
ReachNow launched in Seattle in April last year, competing with car-sharing services like Car2go, which just added new Mercedes Benz vehicles to its fleet. The service allows users to reserve a vehicle with their smartphone and park the car in any city spot within ReachNow’s coverage map when the ride is completed.
There are now 700 ReachNow vehicles in Seattle, up from 370 at launch. ReachNow later expanded to Portland and Brooklyn.
BMW also launched a pilot program for a ride-hailing service last year, setting it up to compete directly with Uber and Lyft.
The company said in November that there were 32,000 ReachNow members across Seattle and Portland.
