Brooklyn Could Lose Nearly 100 Parking Spots For Carshare Program

BROOKLYN, NY — The city will remove nearly 100 parking spots around Northern Brooklyn — with Park Slope being hit the hardest — to dedicate them to carsharing companies under a new pilot program

The two-year program plans to remove public parking spaces in Park Slope, Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Downtown Brooklyn and only allow vehicles from participating carsharing companies like Zip Cars and Car2Go instead, according to the Department of Transportation.

"This pilot aims to put carshare within convenient reach of more New Yorkers to increase the mobility and financial benefits of the service for residents and the city as a whole," a spokesman for the DOT said in a statement.

The city will install new signs designating the spaces only for the shared vehicles and private cars who park in them can be ticketed and towed by the NYPD, according to the agency.

In Northern Brooklyn, Park Slope will face the biggest loss of spots under the pilot with the city removing a proposed 30 street spaces for the program. Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill will lose a combined 30 spaces, 10 in Red Hook, 10 in Boerum Hill and 10 in Brooklyn Heights, according to the DOT.

The agency said they chose the spots for carshare using feedback from local council members and launched an online site to get public feedback on them last year.

They presented the plans to community boards this month and will use the feedback from members for the final selection of the sites, the DOT said.

The DOT will designate about 300 on-street spaces for the program across the city along and another 300 in municipal lots with the aim to drive down car ownership and congestion, the DOT previously said. The agency plans to launch the initiative in the spring.

Image: Department of Transportation