(Image Credit: Curtis Goodrum/CFJC Today)

By Victor Kaisar

Car Share

City of Kamloops working to create policies to support car share services

Mar 25, 2026 | 5:12 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops staff are working to draft a set of policies that would help support the introduction of car share services in the city.

City council voted in favour of a motion from Councillor Nancy Bepple at Tuesday’s (March 24) meeting that aims to create supports and incentives for car share vehicles, like free on-street parking and reduced off-street parking requirements in new multi-family developments.

“Parking is incredibly expensive as it costs between $40,000 and $50,000 for a surface lot and over $100,000 for an underground spot,” Bepple told CFJC Today. “It also uses up space that you can use for other things like more apartments or amenity space.”

Bepple said car share services already exist in several other B.C. communities like Kelowna, Saanich, Nanaimo and New Westminster. She hopes to see similar services in Kamloops to make it easier for people who don’t own cars to have access one when they need it.

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“It’s somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent of households that don’t have a car, but people may need one to take an out-of-town medical trip. They may need a car when they’re going to do some large-item shopping or to take things to be recycled,” Bepple said. “There are different reasons why you may need a car when a bus or a taxi wouldn’t do.”

Bepple believes car shares could also help create more walkable and vibrant urban neighbourhoods, while also making it cheaper to build new housing by reducing parking minimums that are currently required for new developments.

“There was a developer that wanted to bring in a car share in Kamloops, and there was no policy in place, so they didn’t get anywhere,” Bepple said, referencing efforts by Kamloops-based Propel Us. “This will give clear policy to developers that says ‘if you provide a car share, you can have this much less parking.'”

“For the developer, they’ll also be able to build things that are more affordable for people.”

It could take a couple of months before city staff return with details about the what the car share policy in Kamloops could look like. They’re expected to return with a proposal to allow a co-op model to operate as a pilot to ensure there is demand for the service in Kamloops.

That service could well be Propel-Us as the company hopes to launch a two-car pilot on Tranquille Road this year, before adding four more vehicles next year as part of a gradual expansion of service.

Bepple hopes the proposed policy returns to city council for a vote this summer, or at the very least before the municipal election in October.

“Kamloops is a big city. We have 107,000 people and a car share is something that many of them want,” Bepple added. “It is clearly laid out in the city’s Climate Action Plan that we should provide car shares and it’ll make Kamloops a more livable place to be.”