Too bad they don't just have coin op charging stations. Think laundromat. That would be fun to see anyway.
Seriously though, all the city has to do is install a parking meter at every charging station with the rate set high enough to cover the electric cost and pay back the installation costs over a period of time. No new laws, no headache, and anyone can park there if they are willing to pay for it.
Come to Vancouver BC!
We create more congestion and pollution by permanently shtting down lanes on busy streets to create bike lanes that 1% of people use less than 50% of the year.
We also install free-to-use public bicyle tire pumps that cost $2000 each and are sure to be stolen by scrappers within the month.
I'm sure we'll get free charging stations soon, electricity is free and green because it simply comes out of the wall!
This greenwashing crap is annoying as all hell.
Trans_Maro wrote: Come to Vancouver BC! We create more congestion and pollution by permanently shtting down lanes on busy streets to create bike lanes that 1% of people use less than 50% of the year. We also install free-to-use public bicyle tire pumps that cost $2000 each and are sure to be stolen by scrappers within the month. I'm sure we'll get free charging stations soon, electricity is free and green because it simply comes out of the wall! This greenwashing crap is annoying as all hell.
Yep. Portland is right there with you. Also there are a number of businesses setting up charging posts in their parking lots, but those are a convenience for their customers, so it becomes a marketing tool. Much like bike stands, etc.
Much like the street spots in front of the PGE office downtown. They worked with the city to create a special parking zone and provided the charging stand themselves.
In reply to carguy123:
Wasn't the carbon footprint of just the Prius batteries the same as running a hummer h2 30k miles a year for something like 20 years? I remember one of the auto mags actually stating that several years ago.
JG Pasterjak wrote:novaderrik wrote:Actually, of the 39 power generation facilities operated by Excel Energy in the Minneapolis area, only 2 are coal-fired. Most are natural gas and hydro, with two nuke plants delivering most of the juice. jgcarguy123 wrote: I can't understand why anyone would ever think they'd get their gas or electricity for free!he also doesn't like it when i ask him how his coal powered car is treating him...
he lives in Buffalo, so the coal plant in Monticello is closest... followed by the Nukeyouler plant...
oldopelguy wrote: Too bad they don't just have coin op charging stations. Think laundromat. That would be fun to see anyway. Seriously though, all the city has to do is install a parking meter at every charging station with the rate set high enough to cover the electric cost and pay back the installation costs over a period of time. No new laws, no headache, and anyone can park there if they are willing to pay for it.
the charging stations i saw at the Wal Mart just north of Austin, TX when i was down there last summer had a credit card reader on them.. you plugged in, swiped your card, and went into the store. you got charged for however much electricity you used at whatever the rate was.
they were the only 2 empty parking spots in the whole lot...
Trans_Maro wrote: Come to Vancouver BC! We create more congestion and pollution by permanently shtting down lanes on busy streets to create bike lanes that 1% of people use less than 50% of the year. We also install free-to-use public bicyle tire pumps that cost $2000 each and are sure to be stolen by scrappers within the month. I'm sure we'll get free charging stations soon, electricity is free and green because it simply comes out of the wall! This greenwashing crap is annoying as all hell.
I have coworkers who can't open their apartment windows anymore since bike lanes were put in on their block. now they have a parade of trucks idling in traffic so some kid with a neck beard on an old 3 speed Ross can get home from Whole Foods without having to learn how to ride in traffic.
carguy123 wrote: What you meant to say was to us a DIFFERENT energy package and push some of the pollution TO A DIFFERENT SPOT. I'm not sure that benefits anybody.
So you're saying that cars should only be propelled by a single power source, so that whoever controls that power source would have control over the cost of it? That there's shouldn't be alternative power sources introduced into the marketplace to compete for market share?
Why do you hate the free market so much?
jg
JG Pasterjak wrote: Why do you hate the free market so much? jg
Because free market = the communists have won!
David S. Wallens wrote:JG Pasterjak wrote: Why do you hate the free market so much? jgBecause free market = the communists have won!
..... Hitler!
yamaha wrote: In reply to carguy123: Wasn't the carbon footprint of just the Prius batteries the same as running a hummer h2 30k miles a year for something like 20 years? I remember one of the auto mags actually stating that several years ago.
yeah, that was stated, then disproved a few million times.
novaderrik wrote:oldopelguy wrote: Too bad they don't just have coin op charging stations. Think laundromat. That would be fun to see anyway. Seriously though, all the city has to do is install a parking meter at every charging station with the rate set high enough to cover the electric cost and pay back the installation costs over a period of time. No new laws, no headache, and anyone can park there if they are willing to pay for it.the charging stations i saw at the Wal Mart just north of Austin, TX when i was down there last summer had a credit card reader on them.. you plugged in, swiped your card, and went into the store. you got charged for however much electricity you used at whatever the rate was.
That's how all the ones I've seen work. Or better, when you get to one, you use your phone app to start the charging process and it charges your account directly without having to swipe a card. Then when you're done charging, you use the phone app to close it out. It's easy and quick, but the cost tends to be higher than peak market rates for electricity.
carguy123 wrote:Josh wrote: thus consuming less energy and creating less pollution, which benefits everyone.SAY WHAT??!!!? What you meant to say was to us a DIFFERENT energy package and push some of the pollution TO A DIFFERENT SPOT. I'm not sure that benefits anybody. Plus it encourages the manufacture and disposal of ....... never mind, you probably believe in fairies too.
I hope you're being sarcastic and not just ignorant.
Chris_V wrote:carguy123 wrote:I hope you're being sarcastic and not just ignorant.Josh wrote: thus consuming less energy and creating less pollution, which benefits everyone.SAY WHAT??!!!? What you meant to say was to us a DIFFERENT energy package and push some of the pollution TO A DIFFERENT SPOT. I'm not sure that benefits anybody. Plus it encourages the manufacture and disposal of ....... never mind, you probably believe in fairies too.
It's hard to tell some times, and it's amazing how many poorly researched opinions are the most deeply held and vehemently defended.
Wally wrote: I have coworkers who can't open their apartment windows anymore since bike lanes were put in on their block. now they have a parade of trucks idling in traffic so some kid with a neck beard on an old 3 speed Ross can get home from Whole Foods without having to learn how to ride in traffic.
Sounds like your municipal works people suck then- they passed a law here such that whenever a major (2+ lane each way) road here is repaved and re-lined they have to add a bike lane, and I've not once seen them lose any actual traffic lanes to do it. But then, I work in an office of engineers where about 1 out of 10 of us (myself included) commute via bike when the weather is decent and am quite capable of riding in traffic.
Now if only someone would bother teaching the people driving alongside me how to drive around bikes (and in many cases, around other cars)...
<===Was stationed in Germany, understands mass transit can be functional and pleasant.
If we're going to subsidize something why not subsidize mass transit so we can get cars off the road rather than just replace one type of cars with another?
JG Pasterjak wrote: so that whoever controls that power source would have control over the cost of it?
That's pretty tinfoil hat-ish if you ask me. Do you really think that oil companies would kill the economy by charging exorbitant gas prices? No, they wouldn't. Would they charge the maximum they reasonably could out of the public? Absolutely. No different than ANYTHING you buy EVER. You are paying the most the public is willing to bear/most profitable price range.
If oil companies jacked the prices up say a dollar a gallon overnight, the US economy would probably collapse. That'd be plain dumb.
The county building here in Vancouver WA has metered spots for normal cars and free charging spaces for electric cars which always remain empty. I'm always tempted to park my 16mpg RX-8 on one of the spots and run the charge cord under the hood so it looks like it's charging. 
ShadowSix wrote: <===Was stationed in Germany, understands mass transit can be functional and pleasant. If we're going to subsidize something why not subsidize mass transit so we can get cars off the road rather than just replace one type of cars with another?
Don't we have a lot more sprawl and suburbia than in most European countries? (That's the explanation I've heard in the past for why mass transit is difficult in the USA)
Chris_V wrote: yeah, that was stated, then disproved a few million times.
Ahh, makes sense.....I know the Exide plant on the south side of town pollutes the berkeley out of that area, so they cannot be what the smug people completely think. Either way, I welcome them not using gasoline that i'd rather use myself.....but I definitely don't think the general public should have to absorb the cost of public charging stations.
JoeyM wrote: Don't we have a lot more sprawl and suburbia than in most European countries? (That's the explanation I've heard in the past for why mass transit is difficult in the USA)
Having spent about a third of my childhood in Europe (Army Brat), I've often asked and wondered why we don't have a public transit system like they do- where it was almost easier and quicker to take a train/bus to where I wanted to go- including across the country- than it was to drive. I've never heard a really GOOD explanation as to why.
I've heard it said, "Oh, we just have so much more space and are spread out a lot more than in Europe." Um, sorry- but I lived for a while in a small town a modest ways outside of Darmstadt (wish I were at home on my Mac, making umlouts is much easier there...), and there was both a train station that connected in to the larger lines and a bus station that would take you to the other small towns and into the larger city's transit center.
The best explaination I've come up with as to why we don't- and note that it's not argument as to why we shouldn't- is a combination of the automobile being a deeply ingrained symbol of freedom for most Americans and the cooresponding stigma of trains/busses/public transportation being for poor people who can't afford cars. When the New Deal put people to work on public works, IIRC they built LOTS more roads than they did track- had the focus there been different, we might have had a much better infrastructure on which to base a national railway system.
Unforunately, I don't think that there will be a really drastic change in the attitude of the average American regarding public transit unless there is a major paradigm shift (as much as I generally hate that phrase when it comes to work...): either a new technology that makes it much cheaper and more available, or something like oil/gasoline skyrocketing in price where only the super-rich can afford to drive cars. Obviously, given I'm on these forums because of my OWN love of cars, I would hope for the former...
JoeyM wrote:ShadowSix wrote: <===Was stationed in Germany, understands mass transit can be functional and pleasant. If we're going to subsidize something why not subsidize mass transit so we can get cars off the road rather than just replace one type of cars with another?Don't we have a lot more sprawl and suburbia than in most European countries? (That's the explanation I've heard in the past for why mass transit is difficult in the USA)
Anecdotally I would say so. People in Germany seem to live closer together, I don't know if there's hard data to back that up, but I think you're right. Germany is full of suburbs, but they are different. I'd say a family that might have an acre and a house in the US would probably have 1/3 acre and a townhouse in Germany. I'm not sure the gap between the residential density here and there spells doom for mass transit. Maybe we just need different mass transit. Lots of small buses instead of a few high-capacity subway lines?
There is a two-way relationship between population density and mass transit. I think that safe, reliable, clean mass transit would draw people (especially young people) back into denser communities. Go find an under-employed millenial and ask him/her if she'd trade some acreage and some square footage for the ability to not have a car payment, auto insurance bill, or pay for gas. Plus mass transit means you can spend your commute watching netflix, posting on facebook, or reading a book instead of waiting at red lights. Take a look at the communities that have grown up around some of the outer stops of the DC metro.
In reply to Masstransitpeople
I used to work in mass transit. There was a trade magazine, and every year they rated each transit authority in terms of how many dollars one ticket would cost to break even. NYC was some reasonable number around a dollar. There was one other big one that was close. Everything else was crazy. Some in the hundreds of dollars, one or two in the thousands if I remember correctly.
The answer is that we do have mass transit in a lot of places that people do not use.
Theories abound as to why, but it doesn't matter. We have smaller scale mass transit all over and it just doesn't get used.
Ashyukun wrote:Wally wrote: I have coworkers who can't open their apartment windows anymore since bike lanes were put in on their block. now they have a parade of trucks idling in traffic so some kid with a neck beard on an old 3 speed Ross can get home from Whole Foods without having to learn how to ride in traffic.Sounds like your municipal works people suck then- they passed a law here such that whenever a major (2+ lane each way) road here is repaved and re-lined they have to add a bike lane, and I've not once seen them lose any actual traffic lanes to do it. But then, I work in an office of engineers where about 1 out of 10 of us (myself included) commute via bike when the weather is decent and am quite capable of riding in traffic. Now if only someone would bother teaching the people driving alongside me how to drive around bikes (and in many cases, around other cars)...
We have a Mayor and a DOT commissioner who are far removed from reality. They think that the people driving around NY do it because they want to and if becomes more difficult they will stop. To make a bike lane they take away a lane, paint it and put up a barrier like these nice planters or concrete dividers. The sad part is most people still ride out in traffic or on the sidewalk even where they have these lanes. 
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