Jackson Heights Life

So now we're giving up our parking spaces to private companies to run a car-share business?  Really? 

I understand that car owners do not own the space beneath them, but I have problems when that space is used to provide profit for private industry. Yes, some people will benefit, people who pay costs and fees to the private car rental service because they choose to use their service instead of public buses or trains. Car sharing rentals are already available at the public garages on 37th Ave and on 88th and Northern at that new garage. I fail to see how displacing current car owners to give space to a private industry that provides a negligible, duplicative, benefit will decrease cars circling for spots. Perhaps it would make sense if the neighborhood was transient enough to have enough new people constantly moving in that might choose to not move with a car on a regular basis. I'm not sure that JH is at that spot. Of the 14 spots on the pilot survey, 10 are areas that are rapidly gentrifying. This seems to encourage that process and churn.

I don't see this service as serving the same public good as Citibike, which I feel is a justifiable yield of space. It feels like a giveaway of a public good. While drivers do not own the street they park on, their taxes pay for it. Why should they be excluded from the use of that space for the benefit of a private company?  I had a similar complaint when my street was blocked off for filming in Astoria 25 weeks out of the year to benefit a school that rented out its space to every TV show and movie that needed school interiors (St John's Prep). It was infuriating and of no benefit to the people who had to put up with the lights, people, and trucks belching exhaust in our windows all day. Someone got paid, though, and that was all that mattered.

 Absolutely love this! Have used the car shares in the neighborhood (zipcar) and loved it for a contract job with the city.
We still need and use our family car but can forecast the day when that is no longer necessary. If this program was
more available, we would accelerate the elimination of our vehicle as the neighborhood parking has gotten tougher.
The carshare could be serviced a bit better and cleaned more often but generally they were great. Riding a jeep one
day and mini the next, keeps you energized and alert as a driver. Had only one issue when the street was blocked
on 71st St because of prayer services for EID and I missed a half day of work finding an alternative.
  Many of our neighbors barely use their vehicles as far as I can tell but we also don't want to free up parking for all
of Long Island to use our spots while they take our subway too - solution, resident parking stickers please!!

I also think that there is a chance that some current auto owners may 'give up' their cars when it's time to get rid of them.  I read recently that people with two cars are downsizing to one, and that others with one car with opting to rely on Uber or car sharing services instead.  If that is true we may see some relief on parking overall. 
This is the future.

I'm not completely against the carshare plan, but a better use of this space, especially in a dense neighborhood like JH, would be to expand Citibike stations here. Does anyone know if this is ever going to happen? It does seems like in order to expand further out in the boroughs that they might need to extend the 45 minute ride time that's included in the base price. Still, it is infinitely frustrating that the bike share program only goes to LIC.

Current Jackson Heights Zipcar users: do you find it difficult to rent cars in the neighborhood right now on the weekends?  (I used to have this problem while living elsewhere in NYC.) Would additional rideshare services like this one be useful to address the demand?

Fair enough point - the more I think about it, I would use Citibike at least a few times a month to get to Astoria. So why are they taking so long? Too bad we can't swap out this rideshare test run with a Citibike kiosk...   

Our entire transportation system is heavily subsidized. 

Car owners who park and drive on the streets for free are subsidized.  Public transit passengers are subsidized.  Even "subscribers" of private services like ZipCar and Citibike are subsidized because they are not paying for the use of the streets as part of their cost of travel.

This proposal would take a space that one neighborhood resident uses to store their vehicle for days at a time, and lease it to a mobility service open to anyone in the neighborhood.  That one parking space will benefit many more people over the course of a day than one space typically does.

Leasing of a few on-street parking spaces for car share companies has been tried in Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and other cities, and has proven to be a popular and successful strategy.  I'm definitely for it.

That's what I was thinking as well. I don't understand those complaining about losing parking spaces because a successful carsharing program would mean substantially less car ownership and therefore, more parking spaces available overall.