The Amherst Select Board last night unanimously approved the conversion of three downtown public parking spaces to "electric vehicle only" with the one located in the underground portion of the Boltwood Parking Garage reserved exclusively for the town vehicle.
Town recently purchased this $30K electric car partially paid for ($7,500) by state grant
That space is immediately adjacent to the reserved underground spaces that cost $850 per year.
Charger will be located in corner space near electrical outlet and (stinky) stairwell
Two others spaces in the prime but hidden lot located directly behind Town Hall will have a "duel head" level 2 charger paid for via a state grant ($10,000) that will be for the general public use. That conversion is expected to happen before June 30, the end of the Fiscal Year
The same bargain rate of 50 cents per hour will apply and if a non electric vehicle parks there our fleet-of-foot Parking Enforcement personnel will issue tickets.
Town Hall hidden backlot
who pays for the electricity?
ReplyDeleteWe do.
ReplyDeleteIn that case, I demand to park there at the same rate!
ReplyDeleteYou can. It's still 50 cents per hour whether you plug in or not.
ReplyDeleteBut Parking Enforcement will be told to ticket any vehicle parking there if it is not actively engaged in recharging.
Silly hippie elitists. They fell for this Prius scam. I want a special parking spot for my environmentally friendly H1 USA made Hummer. Maybe I will trade it in for a new NSX.
ReplyDeleteDo your homework!
https://foltztech.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/prius-not-so-green-after-all/
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=14304
Grant funded or not, I think it is unfair to spend tax dollars putting any type of fuel in anyone's private vehicle.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore the perception by many in Amherst that hybrid and all electric vehicles have a substantially smaller carbon footprints is astonishing and short sighted. The power to charge their batteries is derived mainly from fossil fuel generating stations. The manufacture and replacement of their batteries is a resource intensive process with its own carbon footprint.
It is amazing how easily many in Amherst quell their guilt and justify their hypocrisy so easily through nothing more than feel good decisions without research.
The largest source of electricity in Massachusetts is natural gas. So plug-in vehicle owners who are ardent opponents of the natural-gas pipeline expansion will have to find some very long term parking (because consistency will require them to boycott electricity and, therefore, quit driving).
ReplyDeleteAs one who has, on occasion, driven vehicles with less than fully-functioning alternators and hence parked with a long orange extension cord powering the battery charger so that the car would start again, I have a problem with this.
ReplyDeleteAny 240 Volt lead to ground is 120 Volts, it wouldn't be that hard for me to wire a plug to do this.
So I'm going to get a ticket while I charge my battery bt somenoe else with a hybrid won't? What part of "equal protection of the laws" are we missing here??
This too, shall pass. But my "Bring The Pipeline Right Through My Yard" sign was stolen. Just like my Romney sign was . Bastards!
ReplyDeleteWhat are we--in third grade? Green. What does that even mean? "she wasn't deemed to be green enough, your honor."
DeleteSomeone who knows about energy should be consulted.
ReplyDeleteMost power is not green. At the outlet, at best you get 30% of the power they put on the grid (the rest is lost to resistance).
Most power generation by fuel is say 50% efficient. So you get 30% of 50%, which is 15%. Then you put it in batteries, which when they are new, give you back 90% of what you put in. So now, at best you have 13.5%, Then with motor efficiency, etc. likely near 10% in the long run.
10% of the energy in the fuel used to make the electricity is now used by our electric cars.
But the internal combusion engine in your car is about 50% efficient....5x as good as the electric car.
Even better, the polution is made locally, in stead of asking someone far off to choke on your pollution, the local will as they should.
Don't tell me you are going to charge these cars with solar, it is not real on so many levels. Just the fact that 70% is lost to the grid, even if solar. Solar should be used near the source (says the commenter who has lived off grid for 20 years and knows).
All of the green energy on the grid has a use already, this program is just increased demand, thus we will make it up with fossil fuels.
This is just ignorant people making regulations at the request of ignorant people. These are folks that could care less about the environment and if they did, do not have the mental capacity to actually do anything about it.
But all this was true 25 years ago when they put these things in T-stations for commuters and solar panels on homes where not even regulated in the commonwealth.