In an effort to “reduce private vehicle ownership rates,” the SFMTA is hoping to launch a program taking street parking spaces away from regular car-driving joes, renting them instead to car sharing services.
As the Ex reports, the SFMTA is planning a pilot program in which six San Francisco street parking places would be rented to City CarShare for $150 a month, through a contract with the City Administrator’s Office. Typically, City CarShare cars can be found in private spaces like those in apartment buildings, private parking lots, and gas stations, where they are “checked” out by users of the service.
The plan, which reportedly has the support of Mayor Ed Lee and Board President David Chiu, would take four spaces in Russian Hill: at Hyde and Union streets, Polk and Greenwich streets, Taylor Street and Pacific Avenue and in front of 38 Harriet St., the Chron reports. The plan would also take over a space at Valencia and 17th and one at Clay and Fillmore.
If approved, the pilot plan would begin this fall and could run for as long as six months. Officials will then decide if it makes sense to to expand it to more spaces around the city.
According to Sonali Bose, CFO of the MTA, wider adoption of car sharing can help the transit agency “achieve its goals of reducing private vehicle ownership rates and vehicle miles traveled.”
There’s hope that by parking the sharable cars on the street they will somehow draw new sharers through increasing the visibility of the service — though some might note that the car sharing cars are already pretty high-profile as they’re driven and parked all over SF by their users.
Penalties for parking in a car share spot are expected to be $100 and, possibly, a tow.
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