An open letter to Transportation Alternatives to join CCRC in supporting Fast Fleet for NYC

Wiley Norville
Communications Dir.
Transportation Alternatives
127 W 26th St # 1002
New York, NY 10001
(212) 629-8080


We are writing to ask for your support in joining the Civic Center Residents Coalition to ask the New York City government to enact “fast-fleet” (aka Zip Car) technology to its entire fleet of vehicles.
The New York Times reported as far back as 1987 about abuse of parking spaces by NYPD and government vehicles in Chinatown. The Civic Center Residents Coalition, CCRC, is well recognized for having exposed congested streets, dangerous conditions, and loss of revenue due to the abundance of illegally parked government owned and government employee’s commuter vehicles throughout the Chinatown/lower Manhattan area during the last several years.
Recognizing the struggle of Chinatown activists trying to clear its streets of illegally parked government fleet vehicles and privately owned commuter vehicles with agency sanctioned placards, Transportation Alternatives began research on a large scale to further expose the danger, disrespect, and loss and revenue to the City as a result of the abuse.
It is for this reason that we ask you to support for NYC what Washington D.C. has adopted as its answer to reduce its fleet, streamline its finances, and eliminate once and for all abuse of government owned vehicles.
Fast Fleet, Zip Car technology will be launched in 15 cities in the coming years. Currently New York City is not on that list. Fast-Fleet (http://dcfleetshare.fastfleet.net/) is a fully transparent system that continually monitors every vehicle’s use, location, agency, and driver, thereby eliminating the need for placards.
Just as important as the elimination of abuse is the drastic and immediate reduction of the City’s vehicle fleet because fast-fleet is a car SHARING program. Once cars are shared throughout the City and throughout the day, parking spaces for these cars, maintenance, fuel, and emissions are all reduced.
Can we count on Transportation Alternatives to enthusiastically support this twenty first century solution to government waste in vehicle usage which will for generations to come improve the City of New York?

Sincerely
Jan Lee
Danny Chen
Jeanie Chin
John Ost

When Will NYC Government Go GREEN With Their OWN CARS?!?!?!?!?

On Feb. 13th 2009 CCRC reported on Washington D.C.'s progressive and aggressive approach to curtailing abuse of its government fleet of cars. Washington D.C., like NYC, suffers from a plethora of a good thing gone bad - the "good thing" is about to come to an end for government employees in Washington where tracking, online booking and "zip-car-like" technology is employed to cut the government fleet of cars from 360 to just 60 !!
Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said that the majority of government cars sit for hours and days unused and the City had to pay for that storage time. A much better solution, according to the Mayor was to make a small amount of cars available on an "as-needed" basis. Like Zip Car rental cars, the user, in this case the government employee would have to go on line to "book" a car with a limited amount of time, after which time the car would have to be returned to its "home base".

Here is another article about Washington D.C.'s approach to their government cars.
New York's own Mayor Bloomberg should take some lessons from Mayor Fente and get serious about his GREEN initiative.

When the D.O.T. and Deputy Mayor Skyler met with members of the Chinatown community, the only community to propose this solution to address ourown placard abuse problems, they were met with this statement from the Deputy Mayor "placards are a perk that we believe we owe our employees since we don't compensate them with very much pay".

Big difference in City governance, don't you think? and don't you think NYC deserves better?

It's not a surprise that the Mayor never considered this solution when he and his "sheep" in the City Council proposed congestion pricing as a solution to reducing the number of cars in Manhattan. The Mayor claims to have done a lot to reduce government car abuse by its own employees, but in reality he has left himself an "out" by never proposing a permanent solution.
Placard reduction can quickly and insidiously become placard "growth" once again.

Tracking and online booking of government vehicles provides a permanent solution. Until the Mayor adopts this 21st solution to abuse that even he admits has gotten out of hand, the citizens of NYC will continue to suffer. Taxing the rest of us is not the solution. This is the start of a solution, the City must consider it.


Monday, April 27, 2009, 1:48pm EDT | Modified: Monday, April 27, 2009, 2:04pm
D.C. launches car program for city workers
Washington Business Journal - by Tierney Plumb Staff Reporter

D.C. has launched a vehicle fleet management program for its government employees through Zipcar’s FastFleet service.

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and Zipcar chairman and CEO Scott Griffith made the announcement on Monday.

D.C. government employees can access and reserve city vehicles at fast-fleet.com and select a car type and location. Through a city-issued access card and integrated card reader mounted under the windshield, they can drive the car for official business use.

The D.C. government piloted the program last October with 29 vehicles and four sites. Monday’s launch consists of 58 vehicles at eight sites, which includes 56 hybrid and alternative fueled vehicles.

So far, D.C. has cut about 360 vehicles from D.C.’s motor fleet, yielding an estimated savings of $6.6 million over five years.

“D.C. is leading the way for cities to implement cost effective and sustainable solutions for fleet management,” said Griffith. “We are pleased to partner with D.C. to launch our FastFleet solution and bring the benefits of our car sharing technology to governments across the country.”

The program reduces costs by maximizing fleet utilization on an hourly basis, allowing many trips to be supported by a smaller number of cars. Fleet Share cars average as many as 10 drivers for every one car.