Available parking has become scarce for residents in one Oakland neighborhood–that is because a new car-share business has moved in.

On Thursday, Oakland residents and Oakland city leaders have voiced their concerns over the parking problem.

To say parking is a little tight on 37th Street in Oakland would be a bit of an understatement.

“Yeah, it really is since they started bringing these cars over here,” Oakland resident Erica Westly said.

Westly is referring to black Gig car-share vehicles. 

She says the cars started appearing unannounced several months ago.

“Stuff like this is kind of done without any thought of the people who were there before,” Westly said.

Street parking is already limited in this densely populated area. 

A portion of the block requires a permit for parking. 

This section does not.

“These cars kind of park right in the middle of that spot and the people who live here don’t get to utilize this area very much because a lot of us don’t have parking permits, so it’s kind of a pain,” Westly said. “We have guest over and stuff, and they have to park in the 2-hour because these cars are over on this side.”

The Gig Cars are parked under the Interstate 980 overpass too”

There is a BART parking lot right across the street, feel like they should be able to utilize that for parking,” Westly said.

In fact, that is exactly what they are doing. Two parking spaces are reserved for Gig Cars. 

A page on the Gig Car Share website is screaming, “We are your new neighbors.” 

However, Westly says leaving these parking spots available for the people who live here would be the neighborly thing to do.

“Yeah! Help us out,” Westly said.

The Gig Cars on 37th Street happen to be in Oakland city councilman Dan Kalb’s district.

“We have to control that,” Kalb said. “We need to have an evaluation of what they are doing, where they are doing it, what neighborhoods they are working in, focusing on in Oakland as well as Berkeley and other cities and determine, ‘Is this harming the neighborhood? Are the problems worse than benefits?”

KRON4 contacted Gig Cars Share to see what they have to say about all of this. KRON4 is still waiting for their reply.

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