Title
Recommendation to Authorize the Acting City Manager to Execute a Service Agreement with Gig Car Share for a One Year Point-to-Point Carshare Pilot Program at No Cost to the City. (Transportation 91402)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Elizabeth D. Warmerdam, Acting City Manager
Re: Recommendation to Authorize the Acting City Manager to Execute a Service Agreement with Gig Car Share for a One Year Point-to-Point Carshare Pilot Program at No Cost to the City
BACKGROUND
Car-sharing is a relatively new concept that aims to reduce car ownership and to provide greater transportation choices for people, and could expand in Alameda with the interest of Gig Car Share. Carsharing is defined as a membership-based service, available to all qualified drivers in a community, which allows members to make vehicle trips with the use of a rented vehicle without a separate written requirement for each trip. Unlike taxi and shared ride services, carsharing organizations require their members to be qualified, licensed drivers who operate the carsharing vehicles during the rental period. There are three types of carsharing:
• “Dedicated Space” - members make round trips from a dedicated location. An example in the City of Alameda is Getaround <https://www.getaround.com/>, which used to be City CarShare, and uses three different off-street public parking spaces on an exclusive, “dedicated” basis and one off-street private parking space starting in 2010.
• “Peer-to-Peer” - members make round trips from a dedicated location near the car owners’ residences so no special permit or City involvement is required. An example in the City of Alameda and the Bay Area is Getaround. Turo <https://turo.com/> operates in San Francisco.
• “Point-to-Point” - members rent an available vehicle and end the trip anywhere in allowed areas. It also is known as one-way carsharing or free floating carsharing. In the East Bay, Gig Car Share <https://gigcarshare.com/> has rolled out service in Oakland and Berkeley starting in April 2017.
Gig Car Share, which is owned by the Automobile Association of America (AAA) Northern California, Nevada and Utah’s innovation arm called A3 Ventures, operates in Oakland and Berkeley with a total of 250 vehicles in a 19-square mile zone (Exhibit 1). Gig Car Share is adding 250 more vehicles to the Oakland/Berkeley area, and is looking to expand to the cities of Alameda, Emeryville, Albany and El Cerrito, and approached the City about this expansion opportunity. For the Oakland/Berkeley area, there are a total of 13,000 Gig Car Share members with 163 of them located on the main island of Alameda and 16 of them on Bay Farm Island.
On March 28, 2018, the Transportation Commission recommended approval to the City Council to allow for the City to engage with Gig Car Share to initiate a point-to-point carshare pilot program similar to the pilot Bike Share program. This would facilitate the growth of one-way carsharing and better accommodate existing Gig Car Share members. Staff further recommends authorizing the Acting City Manager to execute a service agreement with Gig Car Share.
DISCUSSION
This section of the staff report explains the expected benefits and impacts to Alameda, and describes how one-way carshare will help Alamedans reduce car ownership and vehicle miles traveled, and will ultimately reduce the demand for parking. Exhibit 2 explains in more depth how one-way carshare works, including the most recent results from the operations in Oakland and Berkeley.
BENEFITS
The benefits from carsharing include:
• lower transportation costs for community members;
• fewer vehicles on city streets;
• increased walking and bicycling;
• decreased greenhouse gas emissions; and
• provides an additional transportation option for community members to access jobs, education and services.
Carsharing reduces driving costs because there is less of a need to own personal vehicles. Carsharing also is shown to increase access to vehicles for lower income individuals and reduces the financial costs of driving for individuals and businesses. Carsharing reduces vehicle purchases and vehicle miles traveled, and consequently more people are walking and bicycling, which have a lower carbon footprint. Further, the car share vehicles tend to be less polluting and more fuel efficient than typical personal vehicles and also tend to have more safety features that help avoid or reduce the impact of collisions.
According to the 2016 American Community Survey, 5.1 percent of Alameda households have zero vehicles, 27.4 percent have one vehicle per household, 43 percent of households have two vehicles per household and 24.4 percent of households have three or more vehicles. The percent of households with no vehicles has increased from 2.2 percent in 2005 to 5.1 percent in 2016, which means that there are now more households in Alameda that could benefit from a one-way carsharing program. As of 2016, there are 30,678 households in Alameda, which means that 1,565 car-free households could benefit from a one-way carsharing program and 8,406 one vehicle households could benefit totaling almost 10,000 households.
The specific benefits that are expected to come from the Gig Car Share point-to-point carsharing pilot program include more transportation connections with East Bay communities. Currently, Gig Car Share is operating in the core areas of Oakland and Berkeley, and is working on expansions in Emeryville, El Cerrito and Albany. About one-third of in-vehicle trips originating in the mornings from Alameda are headed towards these East Bay community areas between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. according to Streetlight InSight 2015 data used for the Transportation Choices Plan. As the Gig Car Share zone expands, this one-way carsharing program is expected to become more attractive and successful.
Impacts to On-street Parking Supply
For the point-to-point carsharing, City staff is recommending that the City dedicate a small fraction of the parking supply for the use of carsharing along the public right-of-way - launching with 35 vehicles and having no more than 50 vehicles over a 24-hour period on the main island of Alameda. In the short term, this dedication of parking resources will reduce the supply of parking for other vehicles. In the long term, the expanded use of carsharing is expected to reduce demand for parking because research shows that carsharing lowers vehicle ownership. Thus, the initial reduction in the parking supply has the potential to create a net increase in parking availability due to reduced parking demand.
Since the City will not be allowing the carsharing members to end trips at parking meter spaces, unreserved carsharing vehicles will not be impacting these premium parking spaces as they do in Oakland and Berkeley. Note that Albany and El Cerrito also are looking into an approach similar to Alameda that restricts ending trips at parking meter spaces. If a Gig Car Share member ends a trip in a prohibited space such as a parking meter or red curb, the Police Department staff would cite these vehicles as they would any other vehicle that is parked in a red zone or using a parking meter that is expired.
Pilot Program Description for Gig Car Share Expansion to the City of Alameda
The following section explains the recommended pilot program for Gig Car Share to operate in the City of Alameda.
A. Carsharing organization responsibilities for the pilot program will include:
• Launching with 35 vehicles on the main island of Alameda at any given time;
• Positioning vehicles to best deliver the benefits of carsharing to City residents with no more than 50 vehicles over a 24-hour period;
• Launching in Bay Farm Island only if it makes business sense for the carsharing organization to serve this area;
• Using fuel efficient hybrid, electric vehicles or other best practice technology to reduce greenhouse emissions from carsharing vehicles. The current batch of 500 East Bay vehicles are Prius C <https://gigcarshare.com/the-cars/> hybrid electric vehicle models from 2017 and 2018 - black with blue bike racks - and average 47 miles per gallon (Exhibit 1);
• Relocating vehicles before they impact street sweeping services, and moving vehicles within 12 hours of posted street sweeping;
• Relocating vehicles before the 72 hour maximum, and moving vehicles prior to being parked at the same location for more than 72 hours;
• Exploring ways to provide accessible vehicles such as vehicles with hand controls in partnership with local stakeholders such as the Center for Independent Living;
• Providing clear and updated rules to the carsharing users as to where rental endings are prohibited;
• Responding to any concerns from Alamedans about the service with a 24/7 support line, which for Gig Car Share is (800) 464-0889;
• Collecting and distributing regular usage data reports in a format preferred by the City and in coordination with the other East Bay pilot cities; and
• Paying for any parking fines and towing violations incurred by its vehicle fleet.
B. Users will be prohibited from ending one-way carsharing rentals for the pilot program at certain locations including:
• Spaces with parking meters due to the daily street sweeping that occurs in the Webster Street Business District and in the downtown Park Street area and so as to not impact these premium parking spaces. In the City of Alameda, parking metered areas have street sweeping every morning since these spaces are located in downtown Alameda and in the Webster Street Business District. Thus, carsharing members will not be allowed to end trips at parking meters since the idle vehicle could block the street sweeping making the street sweeping less effective, which causes pollution to the San Francisco Bay.
• The Civic Center Parking structure on Oak Street at Central Avenue so as to not impact these premium parking spaces; and
• Bay Farm Island due to the lack of current carsharing demand until if/when it makes business sense for the carsharing organization to serve this area.
C. City staff responsibilities for the pilot program will include:
• Promoting and leading the ribbon cutting and launch of the program;
• Educating Alamedans about carsharing options in Alameda;
• Enforcing the rules of the program, especially by ticketing or towing any carsharing vehicles that are found violating the 72-hour time and street sweeping restrictions similar to any other car on the street;
• Forwarding concerns about vehicles and parking to the appropriate carsharing organization;
• Monitoring progress of the pilot program and presenting a status to the Transportation Commission on a quarterly basis; and
• Presenting to the Transportation Commission and the City Council an evaluation of the point-to-point carsharing pilot program after one year and recommending whether to extend, modify or terminate the program. The pilot program end date of June 30, 2019 coincides with the other East Bay pilot programs.
To ensure buy-in within the City and with key stakeholders, staff requested input from other department staff including the Design Review Team, and requested input from the Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Alameda Business Association, the West Alameda Business Association, the Downtown Alameda Business Association, the Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda and Bike Walk Alameda. Furthermore, the Transportation Commission approved a point-to-point carsharing policy in 2015, which involved outreach to City staff and key stakeholders (Exhibit 3). Moreover, the Climate Plan of 2008 has as one of its eight objectives to “Encourage alternative fuel ‘Car Share’ programs.”
On March 28, 2018, the Transportation Commission recommended approval to the City Council to allow for the City to engage with Gig Car Share to initiate a point-to-point carshare pilot program until June 30, 2019 when the Oakland and Berkeley pilot program concludes. The Transportation Commission felt strongly that all public streets should be part of the pilot program, and requested that staff include Bay Farm Island as part of the pilot program. In response, staff is not restricting Bay Farm Island as part of the pilot program as long as it makes business sense for Gig Car Share. Currently, there is insufficient demand to support expansion to Bay Farm Island for Gig Car Share.
If City Council approves the pilot program, the Acting City Manager will execute a one year service agreement with Gig Car Share. City staff will evaluate the program in spring 2019, and will consider whether the City of Alameda needs to be in a formal relationship with Gig Car Share or any other one-way car share company that is interested in operating in Alameda since these cars are expected to be parked like any other vehicle on the public street.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The carsharing policy and program have been designed to be cost neutral to the General Fund. There is no anticipated cost of lost parking meter revenue because the point-to-point car share members will pay for the actual use of metered parking spaces as other motorists are expected to do. Additional revenue will come from the new business license and business taxes generated by carsharing businesses in Alameda. Costs involved with carsharing also include City staff costs to set up and monitor the carsharing program. Initially, the program will demand more time for the launch, data analysis and monitoring, and these costs are expected to diminish as the program matures. These staff costs are included in the current Transportation Planning budget.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
Point-to-point carsharing is consistent with goals, objectives and policies that are stated in the Transportation Element of the General Plan. For example, the Circulation Goal states “Plan, develop and maintain a safe, barrier-free and efficient transportation system to provide the community with adequate present and future mobility.” Furthermore, Alameda’s Climate Action Plan recommends as one of its eight Transportation and Land Use Initiatives to “Encourage alternative fuel ‘Car Share’ programs.”
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The action is exempt under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) based on CEQA Guidelines sections 15060(c)(2), 15061(b)(3) (General Rule) as well as section 15308 (Actions by regulatory agencies for protection of the environment) and section 15301 (operation of existing facilities).
RECOMMENDATION
Authorize the Acting City Manager to Execute a Service Agreement with Gig Car Share for a One Year Point-to-Point Carshare Pilot Program at No Cost to the City.
Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Ott, Acting Assistant City Manager
By,
Gail Payne, Senior Transportation Coordinator
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Edwin Gato, Acting Finance Director
Exhibits
1. About Gig Car Share and Images of Cars
2. Gig Car Share Business Model
3. City of Alameda Point-to-Point Car Share Policy
4. Service Agreement