Senator Webb & Assemblymember Kelles Advance Legislation to Protect Ithaca Carshare Through Both Houses

(ITHACA, NY) Early Friday morning, in the final hours of the legislative session in Albany, Assemblymember Anna Kelles passed legislation (A5718B) to protect the Ithaca Carshare and other non-profit carshares in New York through the Assembly. Earlier this week, Senator Lea Webb passed the Senate version of the bill through her house (S5959B). The bill now heads to the Governor’s desk and awaits her signature before becoming law. 

Said Assemblymember Anna Kelles, “Ithaca Carshare is an icon in our community, embodying our collective values of equity and environmental conservation. Carshare not only reduces car pollution and street congestion but also provides much-needed access to transportation for lower-income families and elders in our community.  Carshare members express their need for access to a car, but it’s too infrequent to justify maintaining ownership and car insurance. I deeply appreciate the essential partnership with Senator Lea Webb on this bill and I am grateful to my Assembly colleagues and to Speaker Heastie for supporting its passage. I am especially grateful to all the advocates who worked tirelessly on behalf of nonprofit carshares – Jennifer Dotson, Liz Field, Creighton Randall, Peter Andrews, Charlie Kruzansky, Zoë Nelson, Chris Reed, Pamela Davis, Fernando de Aragon, and Ed Swayze.  I look forward to the final step of a swift passage by the governor on this critical legislation and to many more years of seeing the Ithaca Carshare emblem on cars driving throughout our district.”  

“The outpouring of public support for this legislation is a testament to the importance of Ithaca Carshare to our community,” said Senator Webb. “I thank my colleagues in the Senate for supporting this bill and Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins for bringing this legislation to the floor for a vote. I am grateful to Assemblymember Kelles and all of the advocates and community members for their efforts to advance this legislation. This is an exciting win for our community, especially for folks who rely on Ithaca Carshare as an accessible means of transportation. Ithaca Carshare has served the City of Ithaca and its surrounding communities for over 15 years, providing an equitable and sustainable means of transportation to over 1500 Ithacans who utilize the service and who are eagerly awaiting its return.”

Nonprofits including Ithaca Carshare have been facing an impossible situation when securing car insurance as the two major remaining private insurers of carsharing, Zurich Insurance Group and Philadelphia Insurance, are leaving the NYS market this year. This situation is unique to New York as all other states allow Risk Retention Groups (RRGs), not domiciled in the state, to provide the DMV-required auto-liability insurance, whereas NYS requires RRGs to be domiciled in New York to offer insurance as allowed by Federal Law. This situation has left carshares without a viable insurance provider, preventing operation entirely despite the millions of dollars invested to electrify the carshare fleets by the New York State Energy and Research Development Agency (NYSERDA). 

In a release put out Friday morning, Ithaca Carshare Director Liz Field celebrated the bill’s passage through both houses, thanking Kelles and Webb and the community for the groundswell of public support. Said Field in the Carshare’s release, “I want to acknowledge and deeply thank the many people who worked on getting this bill passed, most notably Assembly Member Anna Kelles for introducing the bill, and Senator Lea Webb for introducing it in the Senate. They worked tenaciously to gain cosponsors, move the bill through the legislature, hold briefings and press conferences, address concerns from insurance regulators and legislators, and advocate for it relentlessly.”

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