The New York City Department of Transportation to Provide More Parking Spots for Zipcars

   The Department of Transportation (DOT) plans to dedicate, throughout New York City, hundreds of parking spots for car-sharing vehicles like Zipcars, officials said Thursday.

   Zipcars are short-term rental services that users access by using an online app to reserve cars for a few hours or a few days. Zipcar users choose the times at which they will unlock their cars, do their errands, or make their trips, and then return the Zipcars to their designated locations.

   On May 31, 2018, Mayor Bill de Blasio first introduced a ride-sharing pilot program, when the DOT to set aside 285 parking spots for the ride-sharing cars. After the DOT declared its ride-sharing parking spot pilot program a success after the 285 Zipcars were used for 150,000 trips in three years, or an average of 24 trips per month, per space.

   Seventeen drivers per month shared each Zipcar.

     “[Mahor de Blasio's] administration predicted that New Yorkers would come to embrace the cleaner and greener alternative that more convenient carshare offers,” DOT Commissioner Hank Gutman said in a statement. “And 150,000 rides later, the unqualified success of our pilot proved us right.”

    While the notion that the city is removing parking from car-owners might cause some New Yorkers dismay, the DOT argues that the ride-sharing program could actually create more open parking spaces because 7% of ride-sharing customers who were surveyed reported that their use of the Zipcars influenced their decisions to either sell their cars or not to purchase cars.

   In addition, researchers at the University of California of Berkeley worked in collaboration with the city to find that every one car-share vehicle in the city replaced four other cars.

     The city previously required a $765 nominal entrance fee for each spot, and now companies will now have to pay an annual fee “of up to $500” for every two parking spaces they use, the DOT said.

Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.