“What’s your driveway doing for you right now? Probably nothing. It’s probably sitting there, living on Easy Street (or whatever street you currently reside on), and not working for you. Isn’t it about time you put it to work?”
That’s the pitch from new Honolulu startup StallShare, now in open beta, as it seeks to introduce empty parking spaces to the cars of commuting students and professionals. It’s a project of the developing consultant firm Sudokrew. Think if it as AirBnB for parking.
“It’s basically a peer-to-peer network for parking spaces, where people can rent out their driveways” to people who need a place to park, says Sudokrew co-founder Spencer Toyama.
It soft-launched yesterday, but they already have plenty of people who need places to park—they’re just low on parking stalls. So they need your help. If they can get enough parking spaces to try it out in high-need areas such as Manoa, Waikiki, and downtown Honolulu, they can launch officially, and begin rolling out other features (such as on-demand parking; by next year’s Punahou Carnival, you can use the app to find last-minute parking, or make some quick money from your driveway).
While it’s practically convenient, StallShare also seeks to solve a much larger issue. “What we were finding out along the way is that parking isn’t a byproduct of traffic, parking causes traffic,” Toyama says. In speaking to various parking experts, they learned that up to 49 percent of traffic congestion can be caused by people trying to park. “If we can solve this parking problem or put a dent in it, we’re making traction in solving the traffic problem.
“We have a strong community [in Honolulu]. People want to help each other out. If we can build a correlation to traffic, it’s something that is universally understood. Hopefully the community can get behind it to solve it, too.”
Sign up at StallShare.com.