Council panel approves car-sharing parking bill

A plan to set aside a limited number of city-controlled parking spaces for car-sharing company operations cleared the City Council Budget Committee Wednesday.

Bill 10, introduced by Councilman Trevor Ozawa, would establish a three-year pilot project that would set up dedicated parking stalls in city-controlled off-street parking facilities for a fee and sell parking decals that would allow car-sharing users to park in most metered on-street and off-street spaces.

The concept of car-sharing, which is gaining popularity elsewhere, allows motorists to rent cars or trucks by the hour, or even by the minute from nontraditional on- and off-street locations.

"The purpose is to get cars off the road," Ozawa said. At the same time, however, "we’re trying to protect our citizens’ right to park in stalls on-street." A bill introduced last year, which would have allowed the car-sharing companies to pay for reserved stalls and decals for on-street stalls, has been held up in the Budget Committee.

There are two car-sharing models. The "dedicated parking spaces" model ties vehicles to specified stalls and locations. The "free-floating" or "one-way rental" model allows rental companies to park throughout an area provided they have a decal designating the vehicles as car-share.

Ozawa’s bill seeks to accommodate both models.

The bill that advanced Wednesday would reserve 50 stalls for car-sharing scattered at off-street parking lots across Oahu. The annual fee for each reserved car-sharing stall would be $2,500, or 80 percent of the hourly average for nearby on-street parking meters. Those near rail stations would get a 50 percent discount.

Meanwhile, the city would issue a maximum of 250 car-sharing meter parking decals for car-share vehicles that operate under the "free-floating" model. Unlike the reserved stalls, which are all in off-street lots, the decals would allow a car-sharing vehicle to park free in metered stalls both on-street and within off-street city-controlled lots within a 16-mile radius, with some exceptions and restrictions such as the on-street stalls with peak traffic tow-away hours. The bill proposes that the annual fee for a decal be $750, or a formula that factors average hourly rates and hours those rates are in effect, which­ever is greater, and an additional $20 decal fee.

The city Department of Transportation Services and environmental groups also supported the measure, as did car-sharing companies Enterprise CarShare and Car2Go.

Enterprise spokesman Gary Slovin, however, voiced concerns that charging $2,500 for the off-street reserved stalls and $750 for the free-floating decals could give a competitive advantage for those that operate "free-floating" operations.