Car-Sharing and Public Parking in Boston

Car-sharing organizations (CSOs) in Boston are presently limited to placing their shared cars in private parking spaces. However, they have asked the City of Boston to allocate public parking spaces to their shared cars. The City of Boston Mayor's Office commissioned this Policy Analysis Exercise to answer the following question: How should the city of Boston respond to the request from CSOs?

This decision is made all the more difficult due to the scarcity of public parking in many parts of Boston. Since residents lose a public parking space when it is allocated to a shared car, there need to be compensating benefits to offset this added inconvenience. Consequently, in allocating public parking spaces to shared cars, the City of Boston wants shared cars to be substitutes for private vehicles and complements to public transportation.