Council Looks at Car Share as Way to Lower Car Ownership in NYC & Reduce Emissions

NYC DOT Announces Car Share Pilot Program, Dedicating 300 On-Street Parking Spots & 300 Public Parking Lot Spots to Car Share Companies

New York, NY -- Council Transportation Committee Chair Rodriguez continued his press to lower the total number of vehicles in New York City today in a committee hearing on two bills related to car sharing. To a welcome response, NYC DOT announced that they would soon initiate a car share pilot program, using public parking spaces throughout the city, as they study its impacts.

Citing a UC Berkeley study, Council Member Rodriguez pointed out the potential for car share to incentivize New York car owners to give up their vehicles. The study found that in some cities that partner with car share companies using public parking spaces, every car share vehicle on the street meant as many as 11 vehicles were removed. Council Member Rodriguez in 2015 laid out a goal of reducing car ownership in NYC by 400,000 cars, from 1.4 million to 1 million. He acknowledged this plan as able to contribute to this goal.

"The car share pilot program is welcome news for our city," said NYC Council Transportation Committee Chair Ydanis Rodriguez. "As we work to make our city more livable, decreasing the number of cars on our roads is a personal goal of mine. Whether or not our president-elect would like to admit it, climate change is real. If we can move about our city with greater efficiency and fewer emissions, we can have a real impact on our own, in this troubling new era. I applaud the DOT and my colleagues for moving this issue forward."

" New York is home to more than a 1.5 million private cars, and as anyone who's ever looked for a parking spot in Borough Park or Forest Hills or anywhere in Manhattan knows all too well, it is a brutal and time consuming process." said  NYC Council Member Mark Levine , author of Intro 873. "Car sharing programs have extraordinary potential to solve this problem while increasing quality of life by reducing road congestion and growing the population of people who have access to cars. The quality of life, economic, and even environmental benefits of these programs are significant. The research is clear that for every one shared car put on a city street, between 5 and 10 older cars/less fuel efficient cars are taken off."

"When we make it easier for New Yorkers to access cars without having to own one, we get more cars off our streets and build a safer, healthier, more sustainable city," said Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer. "I'm proud to sponsor one of these bills with Councilmember Mendez and support both of them, and I thank Chairman Rodriguez for his continuing work to make Manhattan's streets safer and clearer."

The Transportation Committee heard two bills that provided the impetus for NYC DOT to move forward with this study, sponsored by Council Members Levine, and Mendez and Borough President Brewer. The bills were:

Intro 267 (Mendez): A local law to reserve spaces in public garages for car share services

Intro 873 (Levine): A local law to create a program in which car share companies are granted dedicated on-street parking spaces

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