The city’s carshare program is more than doubling in size in the Bronx.
As part of a second wave of installations, the city Department of Transportation-run (DOT) program is coming to 46 locations in the borough. Since each carshare location includes two parking spots, 92 Bronx parking spaces are being converted for the program, making a total of 130 carshare spots boroughwide.
Carshare allows people to rent cars off the street using an app on their phone. The cars, which are rented through carshare companies like Zipcar, are kept in reserved parking spaces when they’re not in use. The program began as a 2018-2020 pilot, and after DOT deemed it successful enough to make permanent, a first wave of the expansion took place in February.
Now in a second wave, the agency has been transitioning 279 public parking spots across the city into carshare-only spots last week and this week.
In the February installations, just 12 of 80 spots citywide were put in the Bronx, specifically in the Pelham Bay and Westchester Square sections.
Before that, as part of the pilot, there were 20 on-street parking spots in Parkchester and Soundview, as well as 10 spots in municipal lots: four spaces in the Belmont Municipal Parking Field, three in the Jerome-190th Street Municipal Garage and three in the White Plains Road Municipal Parking Field. All of the spots that were installed during the pilot remain except for the Belmont spots, a DOT spokesperson told the Bronx Times.
In a map created by the Bronx Times, the carshare locations, provided by DOT, are color-coded to show whether they were installed as part of the pilot (orange for curbside spots and purple for municipal lots), first wave (brown) or second wave (blue), to show how the program has grown within the borough.
While the carshare spots in the pilot and first wave were relatively confined to certain parts of the Bronx, this latest wave scattered the spots across parts of the borough that hadn’t seen the program before.
One of the new spots is planned for 3600 Irwin Ave., which is the same address for Riverdale Wonderland Daycare.
Sarah Andrew-Madison, who was picking up her 16 month old from the daycare on Tuesday evening, told the Bronx Times that the corner gets busy with drop-off and pick-up at the daycare, which doesn’t have a parking lot. She said she was concerned about parking being taken away from daycare workers and residents.
“There’s a lot of people coming to this particular corner to drop their kids off in the morning and to pick them up in the afternoon,” the Riverdale resident said. “So, sometimes there is some double parking going on because there’s not enough spaces already.”
As of Tuesday evening, the Irwin Avenue spot had not yet been installed.
Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, who represents northwest Bronx neighborhoods now seeing the program, did not respond to requests for comment for this article. November 2022 Community Board 8 minutes show that board members had concerns about parking being used up at the benefit of private companies.
Carshare companies pay $475 per year for each pair of street parking spots (the fees are higher for municipal lots) and permits will be reassessed annually, according to DOT’s program package.
There is a noticeable amount of new spaces that came to Longwood and Hunts Point in the South Bronx, but Councilmember Rafael Salamanca Jr., who represents those areas, declined to comment for this article.
DOT did not say what neighborhoods would be getting the program next, only that future sites will be identified and installed throughout the year. But the Bronx Times learned in the fall that community boards across the borough were contacted by the city agency with lists of proposed locations that had been preliminarily approved for the program. The number of proposed spots differed between districts, with DOT floating more than 10 times as many locations in community districts 9 and 12 than in community districts 5 and 6.
Councilmember Amanda Farías, a Parkchester Progressive whose district participated in the pilot and is getting an influx of parking spots in this wave of installations, told the Bronx Times that the program brings a transportation option that can alleviate the financial burden of car ownership to her constituents, who face unreliable public transit.
She hears from residents with cars that they don’t even reap the full benefits of having a vehicle because they are scared to leave their parking spots while still facing maintenance costs and alternate-side parking tickets.
“When I hear those concerns from constituents, and we have other options that could be more reliable, that could be a way that can benefit their households, that’s why I’ve been continuing to work with DOT to talk about the ways that this can benefit the community,” she said.
But carshare isn’t the be-all-end-all. While the program brings a positive option to the community, Farías said, “it’s not ultimately what the city and state should be focused on in terms of alleviating burdens for families.”
Instead, there should more investments in the subway and bus systems, ferry stops and micro-mobility hubs, she said.
“Adding more cars to the road whether it’s through carshare or through car ownership, it’s not solving the ultimate problem,” she said.
— E.T. Rodriguez contributed to this report
Reach Aliya Schneider at aschneider@schnepsmedia.com or (718) 260-4597. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
