North Brooklyn Residents Skeptical About DOT Carshare Pilot
WILLIAMSBURG – Residents in Brooklyn’s Community Board #1 expressed skepticism at the DOT’s plan to introduce dedicated carshare parking spaces in North Brooklyn this fall.
The pilot will take place in two zones determined by the DOT: Williamsburg and East Williamsburg.
In the Williamsburg zone, the DOT will introduce dedicated carshare parking in 30 parking spaces across 15 locations. The DOT is looking for locations that have two unmetered parking spots at a block corner.
In East Williamsburg, 12 parking spaces at 6 locations will be allocated to carshare-only parking.
The DOT is looking for feedback from the community regarding the placement of carshare parking spaces, and have set up a website for community members to learn more about the pilot program.
The online portal links to interactive maps where users can drop a pin and leave a comment at places where they’d like to see a carshare location, or places where they absolutely wouldn’t.
Community board members and residents alike seemed skeptical of the plan. Some were focused entirely on the loss of spaces to carshare companies—not the potential upside of taking cars off the road.
Others felt burned by previous attempts at soliciting community input, citing CitiBike. Objections were raised that initial community feedback was ignored when the bike share moved into the area.
A representative stressed the nimble nature of the two-year pilot—they’d be able to pull permits for companies that didn’t follow the rules, or remove carshare spaces that weren’t being utilized.
Newly re-elected Council Member Antonio Reynoso addressed the community board later in the evening, and confirmed his support for the program—especially in the face of the coming L train closure.
“We need to get creative,” Reynoso said of the carshare’s efforts to reduce the number of cars on the road.
The council member cited not only traffic, but difficulties parking and poor air quality as reasons to support the carshare pilot, stating that there were simply “too many cars” on the road.
“If it doesn’t work,” Reynoso said of the pilot program, “I’ll be the first one to admit it, and fight to get them out of there.”
The Carshare Pilot is set to launch by the end of 2017 and will run for two years. Make sure to read our initial coverage of the carsharing announcement, which explains the citywide details of the program in depth.