(69) Private car-sharing company ZipCar given exclusive use of public street parking Co... - 0 views
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Private car-sharing company ZipCar given exclusive use of public street parking Could selling street spaces be Permit Parking by Inside-Booster & News-Star on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 9:11pm by Peter von Buol ZipCar, a private car-sharing company which rents vehicles to its members by-the-hour, has quietly been given exclusive free use of specially-designated on-street parking spaces throughout the city, including some on residential streets. When a ZipCar sign recently popped up alongside a building on the 1300 block of W. Wellington, a local resident contacted Inside Booster and said she was annoyed the city has started setting aside on-street public parking spaces for the exclusive use of people who drive vehicles owned by ZipCars. "One parking spot at the Northwest corner of Wellington and Lakewood now has signs put up by the city saying no one can park here except ZipCars. It is a public street and has always been a public parking spot, but now anyone not in a ZipCar will be ticketed and fined for parking there," wrote Betty Geilen. Indeed, if this is now city policy how long will it be before the city sees the revenue-generating potential in leasing these parking spots to ZipCar or other car-sharing companies? Or on an even bigger scale by leasing public street parking spaces on city streets to private parties and citizens? "When I drive back from work at about six o'clock, all the parking spaces are usually already gone [which means] I usually have to park two blocks away. We chose not to put a garage in our back yard because we have an apple tree, which produces oxygen and is therefore 'green' and environmentally-friendly," continued Geilen. Geilen also complained the signs installed by the city to mark the spot have given the company free city-sponsored advertising. "They have a prominent spot where there is a lot of foot-traffic right by the bar at Wellington and Lakewood," she said. "It would be impossible fo