The City of Boston’s announced Thursday morning that the Public Works Department will begin collecting parking space savers Monday, March 2, effectively bringing the controversial winter practice to close for the 2015 season. The city’s space savers ruling comes just days after a Boston Globe report on car-sharing company Zipcar’s proposed expansion, which would allow customers to legally park company cars in public spots at any time of the day.
The impetus for Zipcar’s proposed expansion, according to the Globe‘s Jon Chesto, is the launch of a city pilot program that essentially reserves public parking spots for car-sharing company vehicles. Under the pilot program “free-floating” car service users would be allowed to park – and pick up – cars at residential spots and at meters without a neighborhood sticker or fear of being ticketed.
One hundred and fifty free-floating permits for the pilot DriveBoston program were put up for bid this month by the city, the Globe reports. Car2Go, the biggest free-floating car service company in the U.S., didn’t submit a bid by Monday’s deadline, paving the way for Zipcar.
The Fort Point-based car-sharing company currently has a fleet of 1,000 round-trip cars in the Boston area, and another 200 in its ONE>WAY program. According to the Globe, “many of the 150 new permits” will be used for Zipcars’ existing fleet.
Enterprise Holdings, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, also placed bids on the permits.
The DriveBoston program makes as many as 230 parking permits available to car-sharing companies. In addition to the 150 free-floating permits, the Globe reports the city made as many as 80 municipal spaces available for bid.
Free-floating permits are up for grabs for $3,500 a car per year; all 150 permits are available for $525,000 a year. The 80 municipal spots would be offered at $3,500 a year in downtown Boston, and $2,700 are year in surrounding areas.
And all that makes the timing of DPW’s scheduled space saver removal curious.
With Boston having endured more than 100 inches of snow, space savers – which are always points of contention during the winter months – have been a way for people to mark their residential parking territory.
Like the majority of those who responded to a BostInno poll, Mayor Marty Walsh’s attitude has been understanding, if not approving of space savers this winter. “If you spend hours digging out your parking space, you should have access to that space for a reasonable time period,” the mayor said.
Still, the city’s space saver ban is set to come down on Monday.
The city isn’t expected to select the winning bids for the DriveBoston program until this summer, so Boston residents won’t have to worry about car-sharing companies stealing the spots they shoveled out for some time. Until next winter.
Mayor’s Office spokesperson Bonnie McGilpin tells BostInno that the city’s pending ban on space savers has nothing to do with the DriveBoston pilot. Either way, though, Boston’s parking squeeze is set to get tighter – and potentially more contentious – when the snow starts to pile up in Winter 2015-2016.
