More than a year ago, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl unveiled a car sharing program in Pittsburgh called Flexcar.

The cars are parked around the city and people pay an hourly fee to use them.

A news release at the time said the mayor planned to use the company to replace the city's current motor pool.

Those are the marked cars city workers use during the day -- not take home cars.

The goal was to save taxpayer dollars. But 18 months after that news conference, no city employees have used the cars.

City councilman Bill Peduto is baffled.

He voted to spend the $10,000 to join the service.

Peduto hoped it would be like car sharing programs in other cities.

In Philadelphia, for example, a similar program began four years ago and has saved an estimated $6 million dollars annually.

"It's worked in cities all over America. But what it requires is a commitment beyond a press conference, a commitment beyond the words, something that has to be done in order to say we're going to make that commitment. We're going to have less take home vehicles. We're going to eliminate our motor pool. And we're going to commit to a program of Flexcars. City after city has done it. We're not creating anything here. We're simply playing catch up," said Peduto.

A spokesperson for the Mayor's office initially blamed the delay on the merger of Flexcar with Zipcar, the world's largest car sharing company. Zipcar took over in March.

The mayor's spokesperson says city employees started training to use Zipcars in September.

But Wednesday the spokesperson says their is another holdup. A contract dispute between the city and Zipcar -- the program is now on hold indefinitely.

Even the mayor has backed off committing to replacing the motor pool. In a recent interview he said he didn't think the entire fleet of 29 cars could go away for good.

"If we find that the Zipcar can be an alternative, sure that will save us money but we need to make sure we have the opportunity as employees to get to point a from point b on critical issues," said the mayor.