City Employees To Use Zipcar Rental Cars

NEW YORK [NY1] — In a new attempt at cost-cutting, some city-owned vehicles are being scrapped in favor of a car-share program. Some 300 employees at the Department of Transportation will soon begin renting Zipcar vehicles by the hour for official city business.

A dedicated fleet of 25 Zipcars will be housed in Lower Manhattan parking garages and made available to the general public on evenings and weekends.

City officials say the program will reduce the number of city-owned vehicles, free up parking spaces and reduce pollution.

“We’re reducing the number of cars, and those that we have are being used much better because we can get some revenue from renting them out on weekends or at nights when we don’t use them,“ said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. ”And also, I think in all fairness, the ability, the abuse of sometimes taking the car home and that sort of thing is just not going to be possible here.”

City officials say the program could save more than $500,000 dollars over four years, and if successful could be expanded to include other city agencies.