City to reserve spots for car shares
THE CITY WILL reserve hundreds of parking spots in neighborhoods around New York for car-sharing services, officials said Thursday.
Some 309 parking spots on curbs and in public and NYCHA parking lots will be set aside for ZipCar and Enterprise CarShare, companies where customers pay to use a car for a few hours.
Mayor de Blasio announced the two-year test program at a press conference Thursday in Morningside Heights, one of 14 neighborhoods that will have special spots.
Officials are hoping that with cars easily available, New Yorkers who own cars but don’t use them very often will get rid of them.
“When you own a car in this city, you’ve got a whole set of challenges that come with it — obviously the cost of insurance, fuel, repairs, but particularly the challenge of parking in New York City. There are just too many cars here,” de Blasio said. “We have to give people new options.”
Hizzoner was blunt about the need to get cars off the road. “If we don’t reduce the number of cars, we’re all screwed,” he said.
The 230 street spots will be reserved for car sharing starting June 4. Besides Morningside Heights, they’re coming to Parkchester in the Bronx, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Williamsburg, East Williamsburg, Park Slope and Red Hook in Brooklyn, the eastern Rockaways, Jackson Heights and Jamaica in Queens, and East Harlem and Hamilton Heights in Manhattan.
Studies in other cities have found that for every car in a carshare program, between five and 20 households get rid of a car or choose not to buy one. But in New York, more than half of households already do without cars.
If the program is a success, the city plans to expand it.
“If this works, we’re going to take it citywide in a very aggressive way,” de Blasio said.
The companies will each pay a $765 licensing fee for the program, but beyond that won’t pay for the reserved street parking spaces. For spots in city-owned lots, they’ll pay the regular fee.
To enforce the rules, the companies will have the power to tow cars that park in their spots and move them elsewhere in the neighborhood, similar to the current model for movie shoots. The spots will also be exempt from alternate side parking rules, but the companies will be responsible for keeping them clean.
Rates for cars range from around $8 to $18 an hour, in addition to an annual fee. Both companies will offer modest discounts for NYCHA residents, and ZipCar gives a discount to people who have the IDNYC card. The program drew gripes from drivers who said setting aside spots for car shares would make it even harder for other motorists to find a place to park.
Brooklyn Heights resident George Wishart, 55, said film shoots already wreak havoc on parking spots.
“I feel this is gonna make an already bad situation worse,” he said. “I’m not excited because this neighborhood is already stressed for parking.” MAYOR de Blasio says he’s going car free — someday. Hizzoner, who has drawn attention and sometimes ridicule for his near-daily car trips from Gracie Mansion to his gym in Park Slope, said Thursday he plans to ditch his car when he leaves office. “When I go back to my old block on Jan. 1, 2022, I am not buying a car. I guarantee you,” de Blasio said. De Blasio was an avid driver before he became mayor, for years shuttling his son Dante to school every day from their home in Park Slope. But he said owning a car has become too much of a hassle. “I spent more nights than I could possibly count circling the block looking for a parking space,” de Blasio said. “I was cursing that car every single night.” “But on January 1st, at 12:01 am, on 2022, I get to do my own thing,” he said. “’m not owning a car, guarantee it … I think life is going to be a lot mellower.”