An All-Electric Carsharing Program Can Reduce Emissions and Congestion in New York City
By: 2022 New York Fellow Stephen Mushegan
Combining the carsharing model with electric vehicles and public charging can provide New Yorkers with an affordable and sustainable transportation option when personal car trips are necessary.
Transportation accounts for almost 30 percent of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions, with passenger cars responsible for the majority. Aside from worsening climate change, gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles also emit air pollutants that create smog and negatively affect our health, with disproportionate impacts on communities of color.
In response, both the city and state have gone all-in on an electrified future. New York City’s Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) has laid out an ambitious plan to expand public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations by 2030. At the state level, Governor Kathy Hochul issued a directive in September for all new cars sold to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035.
To fight climate change, these are steps in the right direction. Electrifying transportation will improve local air quality, reduce our dependence on expensive fossil fuels, and drastically cut our emissions.
But swapping each fossil fuel-powered car with an EV is far from a panacea for our transportation woes. Soaring car ownership during the pandemic has already exacerbated the city’s parking problems. Traffic delays robbed 56 hours from the average New York metropolitan area driver in 2020, making the region the worst in the nation for congestion, according to a Texas A&M report. Vehicle crashes led to 273 unnecessary deaths across the city in 2021.
These problems are directly related to the number of cars on the road, but statistics alone are not going to make people give up their wheels. Ultimately, to reduce car ownership, the city needs to provide an affordable and sustainable alternative when cars are needed. That’s where an all-electric carsharing program fits in.
From the subway, bus, and ferry service to yellow cabs, rideshare, electric mopeds, and bikeshare, New Yorkers have no shortage of mobility options to choose from. As a result, only 27 percent of the city’s workers commute by car. Counterintuitively, however, nearly half of New York City households in 2018 owned a vehicle, a figure that has only since gone up during the pandemic. Throughout the city, parked cars take up the equivalent of 12 Central Parks’ worth of street parking space that could otherwise make room for express bus lanes, outdoor dining, and safer walking and biking infrastructure.
Whether it’s for catching fall foliage in the Catskills, visiting family in the tri-state area, or heading to a Long Island beach on a hot summer day, there is no doubt a car offers freedom and flexibility for those who can afford one. But how do we provide for these legitimate car uses while minimizing the problems exacerbated by car ownership?
Fortunately, NYC DOT already has a viable alternative for such infrequent vehicle uses: Carshare. Carsharing companies like Zipcar give occasional users on-demand access to cars for short-term use, typically not longer than a day. In contrast to traditional rental cars with downtown or airport retail locations, carsharing vehicles are found in designated spaces around the neighborhood, offering a flexible mobility option for households without a car.
In 2018, NYC DOT launched a pilot program to analyze the impact of carsharing on car ownership, total vehicle miles traveled, and on-street parking availability. Following the three-year, 14-neighborhood pilot, researchers found that for every one carshare vehicle in the program, four personal vehicles were either sold or not purchased at all. With this early success, the city developed rules for a permanent citywide carsharing program this summer.
However, in creating a permanent carsharing program, NYC DOT missed a key opportunity to align the program with the city’s plans to advance transportation electrification by providing specific carveouts or incentives for EVs.
By specifically creating an all-electric carsharing program or incentivizing the use of EVs by current carsharing organizations, the city can simultaneously provide an additional transportation option for New Yorkers, reduce the number of cars on the road, and achieve the city’s electrification and decarbonization goals — a win-win-win situation.
The idea is not novel. Cities across the country including Los Angeles, Boston, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, and Rochester already have all-electric carsharing programs in place to provide their community members affordable, on-demand access to EVs. Despite being a leader in public transit, NYC still lags behind other major cities on transportation electrification; an EV carsharing program offers the opportunity to reduce this disparity. And NYC DOT needs only to look internally for the solution.
NYC DOT has already set an ambitious goal of 1,000 curbside charge points by 2025 and 10,000 by 2030 and is currently pursuing a charging station pilot project with UK-based EV infrastructure company Connected Kerb. Coordinating across both NYC DOT’s Carshare and EV programs is key to maximizing the benefits of both initiatives. By combining both efforts, the city can concurrently tackle two major barriers to EV adoption: charging access and affordability.
Charging locations built for an all-electric carsharing program can easily provide both designated spots for carsharing vehicles and space for public charging. By expanding charging points across the five boroughs, EV ownership becomes more feasible for drivers who lack access to at-home chargers, particularly in the city’s dense, apartment-filled neighborhoods. A carsharing EV may also serve as a test-driving opportunity for prospective owners, further increasing EV adoption for those who require a car for regular use.
For low- and moderate-income households that cannot afford a car, carsharing programs provide intermittent access to a private vehicle for the occasional trips that require one. EVs in particular remain out of reach for many Americans, meaning all-electric carsharing has an even greater role to play in equitable access to EVs, especially in lower-income and disadvantaged communities. Even for families that can afford a personal vehicle, avoiding car ownership can free up money otherwise going to car payments, fuel, and insurance for other household expenditures or emergency savings.
While replacing gas-guzzlers with EVs is a worthy pursuit in the fight against climate change, electrifying cars alone will not solve our parking, congestion, and road safety problems. By creating an all-electric carsharing program, we can significantly reduce car ownership while expanding access to a sustainable alternative for the few times car trips are necessary. By kicking car ownership to the curb, we can reclaim the streets for a more vibrant, walkable city and a safer place for all New Yorkers.
About the Author
Stephen Mushegan is a 2022 New York Fellow with the Clean Energy Leadership Institute and a Climate Cohort Fellow with the Aspen Institute’s Tech Policy Hub. He is also a Senior Project Manager at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).
