Expanding Carshare to Include Point-to-Point Models - Berkeley [PDF]

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Office of the Mayor

CONSENT CALENDAR May 12, 2015 TO:

Members of the City Council

FROM:

Mayor Tom Bates

SUBJECT:

Expanding Carshare to Include Point-to-Point Models

RECOMMENDATION Request that the Transportation, Energy, and Community Environmental Advisory commissions explore expanding carsharing in the City of Berkeley to include point-topoint carsharing models. The commissions should examine policies adopted by other municipalities, in particular Oakland and Alameda, to facilitate point-to-point carsharing as well as other transportation-sharing innovations across multiple cities for possible implementation in Berkeley. BACKGROUND Goal 3 of the Climate Action Goals & Metrics for Transportation & Land Use is to expand carshare and rideshare services in the City of Berkeley.1 Carsharing in Berkeley launched in 2002 with 51 shared vehicles distributed across 28 “pods,” or dedicated parking locations. In 2013, City Carshare and Zipcar together had 6,754 members with access to 114 vehicles in 59 pods in Berkeley.* 2 As the membership of carsharing programs grows, so do available options. Across the various programs, carshare members now have access to vans, trucks, electric bikes, mopeds,3 and even their neighbor’s car.4 Moreover, in addition to the traditional roundtrip model, where one picks up a car and returns it to the same place, new point-to-point models, and hybrid models have emerged. "Point-to-Point" or "one-way" car sharing allows a member to rent an available carsharing vehicle, and complete the trip anywhere in a designated zone. The member may drive the vehicle out of the zone, but can only end a trip within the zone. Point-topoint programs, such as car2go, exist in major metro areas both nationally and internationally.5 The viability of the point-to-point model relies on the carsharing organization's ability to park its vehicles on-street in both metered and permit-restricted residential areas free from parking duration limits. Oakland and Alameda will soon be launching a two-year pilot program with car2go. To enable this pilot, at its March 17 meeting the Oakland City Council passed a new *

These figures do not include peer-to-peer carshare models operating in Berkeley such as GetAround and RelayRides. 2180 Milvia Street, Berkeley, CA 94704 ● Tel: (510) 981-7100 ● TDD: (510) 981-6903 ● Fax: (510) 981-7199 E-Mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/mayor

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carsharing ordinance that established, among other things, new parking permits “to grant car sharing organizations the privileges necessary to operate point-to-point car sharing services” and changes to the Master Fee Schedule “to set the fees for the pointto-point car sharing permits.”6 At its March 25 meeting, the City of Alameda’s Transportation Commission passed a recommendation to council to adopt a carsharing policy that would allow point-to-point carsharing based off of the recently adopted policy by Oakland.7 Taking into consideration the decreasing percentage households with cars in metropolitan areas and reductions in driving by millennials,† the commissions should examine ways to further our climate action goal of expanding carshare to include pointto-point carsharing and what would be required of on-street parking, metered parking, and parking in areas requiring residential parking permits. The commissions should also consider other policies and innovations that expand transportation-sharing options to recommend to the Council. FISCAL IMPACTS None. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT Expanding transportation-sharing options meets an explicit goal set out in the Climate Action Plan CONTACT PERSON Tom Bates, Mayor, 981-7100 LINKS 1

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=71002 https://data.cityofberkeley.info/Transportation/Car-Share-Totals/tscg-detc 3 http://www.scootnetworks.com/ 4 https://www.getaround.com/ , https://relayrides.com/ 5 https://www.car2go.com/en/austin/faq/ 6 https://www.car2go.com/ 7 https://alameda.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2244464&GUID=4FBAF64C6868-4A7A-879C-ACFDB0249F4C&Options=&Search= 8 http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/millennials-motion 9 http://sf.streetsblog.org/2014/08/15/car-free-households-are-booming-in-san-francisco/ 10 http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/24180/88-of-new-dc-households-are-carfree/ 2

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A 2014 US PIRG study shows that “Millennials are less car-focused than older Americans and previous generations of young people, and their transportation behaviors continue to change in ways that reduce driving.” (See attachment 8) Recent data analyses shows that 88% of new San Francisco households between 2000 and 2012 were carfree, and 88% of new households between 2010 and 2012 were carfree. (See attachments 9 & 10)