Cambridge Community Television reports on a city proposal to let Zipcar and potential competitors park their vehicles in residential spaces. Currently, they're limited to commercial areas in Cambridge. Some residents are not enamored of the idea.
Balancing rights for private cars (bad) vs. shared cars (good), at the same time as balancing rights for private ownership (good) vs. corporate ownership (bad).
Let's say you own a 3-decker in Cambridgeside and rent all 3 floors out. You have a driveway big enough for 4 cars to get in and out easily enough. You would give one to each floor, then under this new rule, you could sell the 4th one to Zipcar for a 1-year license (or whatever they have as a standard parking contract) and Zipcar users could come and use the car through the Zipcar reservation system. It's not on the road, it's in your driveway.
That's not how it works now. Right now, only commercial zoned spaces, like malls, businesses, gas stations, etc can sell space to Zipcar in Cambridge.
None of what's suggested is using on-street parking up.
I don't see any downside to this. The more Zipcars are available in residential areas, the fewer people who live in them will need to own and park their own cars.
Those spots in the Fenway are owned by the adjacent buildings and zipcar pays rent to use them. That's far different from the City giving away neighborhood parking spaces for free.
In Brighton (not Cambridge), there's an apartment building a few blocks from my house that has about 20 spaces total running along behind it. It rents 4 of them to Zipcar (which is great, because there's a decent number of Zipcar users in my neighborhood evidently). Under the current law (if they were in Cambridge) they'd be able to rent 0, under the new law, 2. 2 wouldn't be enough to deal with the weekday usage, let alone the weekend crush that Zipcar reservations experience. Then again, I can understand not wanting a residential building to essentially be a rental car agency by allowing them to rent out ALL of their spots as a Zipcar hub for the area. That's fair too.
What I think is small-minded is the people who complain about pricing, like the person who doesn't want it because Zipcar will give their landlord $200/mo and they've only been paying $100/mo as written in the article. That's limited thinking. First, with the new law, they'd only be able to carve *ONE* of you out of a space at $200/mo. The rest of their spaces are still only going to be $100/mo because they can't use Zipcar for leverage on those. Second, for every Zipcar in your area, there'll probably be at LEAST 2-3 other people who sell or leave their car outside the city who would have been taking up other residential spaces that you can now rent instead! That's absolutely the case for me and a few other people I know. Every shared Zipcar probably accounts for about 3-4 people's regular car usage needs *easily*. Some of those will be people who don't have a car already right now, but some will be people who give up a car for the ease of Zipcar. That also pertains to the concerns about "less spaces available to rent" argument too.
The only other concern I read was whether people want Zipcar users coming through "any time of day or night" in residential areas to access the cars. Well, since Zipcars attempt to be ubiquitous, it's not like people are coming from across the city (like they would if it were the closest Hertz or Enterprise). These will be your neighbors and as such they're going to be as respectful as any other neighbor in getting in and out of a private car that would have been parked there anyways. I just don't see an argument for why Zipcar users would be any more disruptive to the quality of living than any other person renting out a space. Not only that, but Zipcar is VERY responsive to handling problems with its users and is one of those companies that "truly cares" even if you're not a customer. Their corporate headquarters are in Cambridge, no less, and so it's not like they want to piss off the locals since they are the locals, too!
Cambridge is the one city in the metro area that has an anti-scooter sidewalk parking statute, and yet they've declared that they willfully ignore it to promote the alternate vehicle usage. I can't see why they wouldn't approve this to further the same goal. Car-sharing is a *great* way to help reduce nearly all of the problems from urban car use.
I know of one spot in Somerville (Hancock St.) where the Zipcar spaces seem to be part of a residential driveway. Been that way for a while. Made me consider seeing if I could rent the other half of my driveway for a Zipcar.
Zipcar is definitely the least "corporate (bad)" corporation I've ever had the pleasure to do business with.
Also, don't forget that this will still be a private ownership issue. Zipcar doesn't buy these spaces; it rents them from private owners. If anything this law gives private ownership a BOOST by declaring it okay for them to do more than under current law with their own spaces when it comes to capitalizing on their ownership.
No problem, I didn't get the feeling that you did. I just wanted to make it clearer for anyone who might read this and not have had any experiences with Zipcar yet (but still want to judge how much support they would have for this law change).
They took the spot right in front of my apartment building. There is already a problem with parking especially during street cleaning days. If people want them on their property, let them.
It is fun to see it get towed every street cleaning day. I wonder how they worked that out with the city. Do they pay the fine and tow charge every month?
a private citizen can get more money selling one of their parking spots to a zipcar company, forcing someone that lives on their property to park on the street. This on street parking might not be allowed for zipcars in some instances. So in theory it could bring up the cost of parking...
I believe the point is, though, that for every displaced person, there will be, say, 2 other unsold spaces as other drivers forgo bringing their car to town because there will be more convenient Zipcar options for them.
Let's say there are currently 100 private spaces holding 100 private cars. Let's say this law passes and 10 of those private spaces are instead sold to Zipcar, you might think that the 10 private cars are now screwed...except that because Zipcar is in the neighborhoods now, 20 other private cars are sold off or left in other states. There are now 20 open spaces for those 10 displaced private cars to use...there's a net *gain* in open spaces over all.
This is a slightly simplistic example. Parking spaces aren't quite as fungible as I just described, of course, but I'm also making other assumptions in the opposite direction too. Honestly, there are very, very few Zipcars housed alongside private homes. What this will primarily apply to are managed apartment buildings who are in residential zones. In the end, there will be fewer cars needing the same number of spaces because car *sharing* means same number of drivers using less cars. If even *ONE* person sells or leaves their car outside the city because of each newly available residentially zoned Zipcar, the argument that this will constrain available parking is voided.
I own a few buildings around Boston and rent out the apartments there. Most of them have parking spots (1 per apartment). Now if I find out that ZIP car wants to pay me good money for one of those spots, I might tell my tenants that they have to get rid of their cars. Now my tenants all have different situations. I know one kid who doesnt use the space he has because he doesnt have a car and actually uses a zip car. But I have other tenants that have cars, but take the train to work and only use their cars when they need them. And then there are some tenants who need those cars to get to work, or who at least want to pay the extra to have the luxury of driving to work. It saves time, and time means money in those jobs. If I take away that space, they might get rid of those cars, but they might not. In fact, most of them I don't think would get rid of the cars, they would pay to put them somewhere else. I really dont see most people in the city getting rid of their cars if they lose their space. Aren't you just putting these people back in the catergory of those who live in aparmtents with out a parking spot? Those people simply buy spaces elsewhere.
To many people I talk to that don't have cars, Zip cars sometimes just arent worth the hassle, unless you really need to use a car a set amount of times a week or month.
But I see your point if you mean to say that if the market is putting zipcars in these spots, it means that people are using the zipcars in these spots, and are using them in place of their old vehicles. Then yes, more zip cars in private spots mean less cars in the city as a whole.
I guess its really tough to tell, and this has to be one of the most boring subjects that I could think about writing about on a Friday night...what the hell is wrong with me?
Comments
Interesting
Balancing rights for private cars (bad) vs. shared cars (good), at the same time as balancing rights for private ownership (good) vs. corporate ownership (bad).
That's a tricky one.
Especially considering that
Especially considering that some private cars are shared cars -- where's the line? (ps. love bike)
Since when does a resident
own the public street in front of their private property?
Not the residence areas they're talking about
These would be driveways of houses, like rentals.
Let's say you own a 3-decker in Cambridgeside and rent all 3 floors out. You have a driveway big enough for 4 cars to get in and out easily enough. You would give one to each floor, then under this new rule, you could sell the 4th one to Zipcar for a 1-year license (or whatever they have as a standard parking contract) and Zipcar users could come and use the car through the Zipcar reservation system. It's not on the road, it's in your driveway.
That's not how it works now. Right now, only commercial zoned spaces, like malls, businesses, gas stations, etc can sell space to Zipcar in Cambridge.
None of what's suggested is using on-street parking up.
Thanks for the clarification Kaz.
Two words - Bad Idea.
Good idea, I hope it passes
I don't see any downside to this. The more Zipcars are available in residential areas, the fewer people who live in them will need to own and park their own cars.
I think the plan is for 1 out of 10 spaces
would be reserved for zipcars in a residential lot. How many buildings have more than 10 spaces? Must be areas behind larger apartment buildings.
There are zipcar spots
There are zipcar spots behind apartment buildings in the Fenway already.
Those spots in the Fenway
Those spots in the Fenway are owned by the adjacent buildings and zipcar pays rent to use them. That's far different from the City giving away neighborhood parking spaces for free.
In my area
In Brighton (not Cambridge), there's an apartment building a few blocks from my house that has about 20 spaces total running along behind it. It rents 4 of them to Zipcar (which is great, because there's a decent number of Zipcar users in my neighborhood evidently). Under the current law (if they were in Cambridge) they'd be able to rent 0, under the new law, 2. 2 wouldn't be enough to deal with the weekday usage, let alone the weekend crush that Zipcar reservations experience. Then again, I can understand not wanting a residential building to essentially be a rental car agency by allowing them to rent out ALL of their spots as a Zipcar hub for the area. That's fair too.
What I think is small-minded is the people who complain about pricing, like the person who doesn't want it because Zipcar will give their landlord $200/mo and they've only been paying $100/mo as written in the article. That's limited thinking. First, with the new law, they'd only be able to carve *ONE* of you out of a space at $200/mo. The rest of their spaces are still only going to be $100/mo because they can't use Zipcar for leverage on those. Second, for every Zipcar in your area, there'll probably be at LEAST 2-3 other people who sell or leave their car outside the city who would have been taking up other residential spaces that you can now rent instead! That's absolutely the case for me and a few other people I know. Every shared Zipcar probably accounts for about 3-4 people's regular car usage needs *easily*. Some of those will be people who don't have a car already right now, but some will be people who give up a car for the ease of Zipcar. That also pertains to the concerns about "less spaces available to rent" argument too.
The only other concern I read was whether people want Zipcar users coming through "any time of day or night" in residential areas to access the cars. Well, since Zipcars attempt to be ubiquitous, it's not like people are coming from across the city (like they would if it were the closest Hertz or Enterprise). These will be your neighbors and as such they're going to be as respectful as any other neighbor in getting in and out of a private car that would have been parked there anyways. I just don't see an argument for why Zipcar users would be any more disruptive to the quality of living than any other person renting out a space. Not only that, but Zipcar is VERY responsive to handling problems with its users and is one of those companies that "truly cares" even if you're not a customer. Their corporate headquarters are in Cambridge, no less, and so it's not like they want to piss off the locals since they are the locals, too!
Cambridge is the one city in the metro area that has an anti-scooter sidewalk parking statute, and yet they've declared that they willfully ignore it to promote the alternate vehicle usage. I can't see why they wouldn't approve this to further the same goal. Car-sharing is a *great* way to help reduce nearly all of the problems from urban car use.
Already allow in Somerville?
I know of one spot in Somerville (Hancock St.) where the Zipcar spaces seem to be part of a residential driveway. Been that way for a while. Made me consider seeing if I could rent the other half of my driveway for a Zipcar.
Correction: Good vs Good :)
Zipcar is definitely the least "corporate (bad)" corporation I've ever had the pleasure to do business with.
Also, don't forget that this will still be a private ownership issue. Zipcar doesn't buy these spaces; it rents them from private owners. If anything this law gives private ownership a BOOST by declaring it okay for them to do more than under current law with their own spaces when it comes to capitalizing on their ownership.
I'm not disagreeing that ZipCar are good guys
I know someone there.
NP
No problem, I didn't get the feeling that you did. I just wanted to make it clearer for anyone who might read this and not have had any experiences with Zipcar yet (but still want to judge how much support they would have for this law change).
I think ZipCar is great
Which is why the question is interesting.
I like the limits in the proposal. That makes it easier to call in favor of promoting car-sharing.
It's an excellent idea, for
It's an excellent idea, for fairly obvious reasons.
I'm hoping they will see fit to station a vehicle or two in my building's parking lot ;).
In fact, there seem to be some Zipcars stationed now in residential parking, or at least what appears to be residential.
I don't think Zipcar should have on-street parking
They took the spot right in front of my apartment building. There is already a problem with parking especially during street cleaning days. If people want them on their property, let them.
It is fun to see it get towed every street cleaning day. I wonder how they worked that out with the city. Do they pay the fine and tow charge every month?
5 residents, 5 cars. 5
5 residents, 5 cars.
5 residents, 2 zipcars.
How does zipcar steal spaces again?
well it could happen in a situation where....
a private citizen can get more money selling one of their parking spots to a zipcar company, forcing someone that lives on their property to park on the street. This on street parking might not be allowed for zipcars in some instances. So in theory it could bring up the cost of parking...
Confused?
I believe the point is, though, that for every displaced person, there will be, say, 2 other unsold spaces as other drivers forgo bringing their car to town because there will be more convenient Zipcar options for them.
Let's say there are currently 100 private spaces holding 100 private cars. Let's say this law passes and 10 of those private spaces are instead sold to Zipcar, you might think that the 10 private cars are now screwed...except that because Zipcar is in the neighborhoods now, 20 other private cars are sold off or left in other states. There are now 20 open spaces for those 10 displaced private cars to use...there's a net *gain* in open spaces over all.
This is a slightly simplistic example. Parking spaces aren't quite as fungible as I just described, of course, but I'm also making other assumptions in the opposite direction too. Honestly, there are very, very few Zipcars housed alongside private homes. What this will primarily apply to are managed apartment buildings who are in residential zones. In the end, there will be fewer cars needing the same number of spaces because car *sharing* means same number of drivers using less cars. If even *ONE* person sells or leaves their car outside the city because of each newly available residentially zoned Zipcar, the argument that this will constrain available parking is voided.
Right, Im just saying in theory it could happen.
I own a few buildings around Boston and rent out the apartments there. Most of them have parking spots (1 per apartment). Now if I find out that ZIP car wants to pay me good money for one of those spots, I might tell my tenants that they have to get rid of their cars. Now my tenants all have different situations. I know one kid who doesnt use the space he has because he doesnt have a car and actually uses a zip car. But I have other tenants that have cars, but take the train to work and only use their cars when they need them. And then there are some tenants who need those cars to get to work, or who at least want to pay the extra to have the luxury of driving to work. It saves time, and time means money in those jobs. If I take away that space, they might get rid of those cars, but they might not. In fact, most of them I don't think would get rid of the cars, they would pay to put them somewhere else. I really dont see most people in the city getting rid of their cars if they lose their space. Aren't you just putting these people back in the catergory of those who live in aparmtents with out a parking spot? Those people simply buy spaces elsewhere.
To many people I talk to that don't have cars, Zip cars sometimes just arent worth the hassle, unless you really need to use a car a set amount of times a week or month.
But I see your point if you mean to say that if the market is putting zipcars in these spots, it means that people are using the zipcars in these spots, and are using them in place of their old vehicles. Then yes, more zip cars in private spots mean less cars in the city as a whole.
I guess its really tough to tell, and this has to be one of the most boring subjects that I could think about writing about on a Friday night...what the hell is wrong with me?