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City CarShare Acquires 11 Parking Spaces in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— San Francisco's latest efforts to reduce traffic congestion involves a car sharing non profit that hopes to free up to 15 private car street-parking spots off the streets.

It's a modest beginning with 11 curbside parking spaces that will be rented to City CarShare, which provides rental cars by the hour.

KCBS' Barbara Taylor Reports:

The plan hopes to bring those cars closer to their 10,000 members in San Francisco who only need them for an hour or two.

Supervisor David Chiu is a big supporter of the idea.

"We have found that every car share vehicle on our streets replaces anywhere from 10 to 15 private vehicles," he said.

Two of the spots will be on Russian Hill, where Chiu knows from personal experience that it's a hard place to park.

"I owned a car for a six-month time period on Russian Hill and it would routinely take me half an hour an evening to find parking and that didn't even include all the other expenses of owning a car," said Chiu.

The pilot program and plans are already in the works to transfer more curbside parking to CarShare in the future.

Car owners may not like the news especially if they don't have a garage, but the idea is to give frustrated car owners a reason to get rid of that car entirely.

(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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