Ithaca Carshare resumed its operations this month after they were suspended in May 2023 due to its insurance issues. The resume in operations comes after legislation signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) on Sept. 15, 2023, finally went into effect six months after its signing.
Ithaca Carshare is a nonprofit organization that provides its members with non-stop access to vehicles offered by the service. Members reserve a date and time online or on a mobile app to use a vehicle from multiple different locations in Ithaca.
Back in May 2023, Philadelphia Insurance, the company that provided insurance to Ithaca Carshare, went off of the market. Left uninsured, Ithaca Carshare found a risk retention group based in Vermont that was willing to provide the nonprofit with car insurance.
However, previous New York law stated that risk retention groups were required to be domiciled within the state. This left Ithaca Carshare uninsured and forced to suspend operations.
Twin bills Senate Bill 5959 and Assembly Bill 5718 — referred to collectively as the Ithaca Carshare Bill — were introduced by State Sen. Lea Webb (D) and Assemblywoman Anna Kelles (D-125th District) to allow nonprofit risk retention groups not based in New York State to provide auto insurance to New York policyholders.
Before the bill was signed, many members of Ithaca Carshare advocated for the signing of the bill through phone call relays and an online petition. Long-term Ithaca Carshare member and Ithaca resident Maggie Mowrer said that she personally called Hochul’s office as well as the offices of local assembly members to support the carshare bill.
“I called the governor’s office and I called the assembly people from around the area, just telling them that we support a bill that would make it easier for [Ithaca Carshare] to get insurance, which is the whole reason they couldn’t continue and just pleading with the governor to sign off on this bill,” Mowrer said.
When Hochul signed the bill in September 2023, Mowrer said she was relieved that the pressure placed on the politicians was successful.
“You never really know what politicians are going to decide to support and they aren’t going to support, so when they announced the bill did pass, it was very exciting,” Mowrer said. “Sometimes it feels like civic engagement is kind of futile, but in this very specific instance, it felt like I actually did something to bring [Ithaca Carshare] back.”
Mowrer said that Ithaca Carshare offered the benefits of having access to a car without having to own a vehicle.
“I started using it because I don’t have a car and I have no interest in really getting a car,” Mowrer said. “There are a lot of times when a car is necessary — I’ve used it to pick up large pieces of furniture or to go to a restaurant that’s maybe not on a bus line, but I knew I would need it at some point, but I definitely did not need a car as often as it would merit getting one.”
In addition to convenience to users, Ithaca Carshare was also found to be beneficial for the environment. A 2013 study conducted by Cornell found that for every vehicle operated by Ithaca Carshare 15.3 personal vehicles were removed from the road.
Director of Ithaca Carshare Liz Field said that it feels good to return to operations. The mass of new members has already kept her and her team busy.
“It feels good [to resume operations], and it’s a little overwhelming. There’s a few kinks to work out but we’re up [and] we’re running,” Field said. “In one week, we had 51 new registrants, 116 bookings and we’ve driven 1225 miles.”
Currently, Ithaca Carshare has 12 cars compared to the 30 they had before they ceased operations, but that they will soon grow to 20 cars. Field said that she predicts it will take a few years to fully return to the service’s size before their shutdown last May.
In addition to expanding the fleet, Field also said that Ithaca Carshare plans on adding more electric vehicles to its roster. However, Field said that this will also take multiple years as Ithaca does not currently have adequate charging infrastructure for such a feat.
“We’re trying to work with private property managers in the city and other places around town and even a little outside of Ithaca to see if it might work to place cars on privately managed property because they’re often willing to put the chargers there,” Field said.
Field said that she is looking forward to the future of Ithaca Carshare, hoping to expand the service outside of Ithaca to people in rural areas who need to compute. Field also said that she hopes that students from Ithaca Colleges and Tompkins Cortland Community College will use the service more.
“It seems as people use the service, every time we get a new car, it just grows as more people join, so I feel like we’ll just keep growing as long as people need to service,” Field said.