It’s like they should already then have dedicated street parking for people who bike commute as that uses up even less fossil fuels! It’s not easy cramming bikes into one’s apartment.

“There are currently just over 2,000 EVs registered in NYC, according to Levine.”

Has anyone considered that a lot of EV owners may do what owners of gas-powered cars do and register their cars to cousins in Pennsylvania and North Carolina or to summer homes in upstate New York and Vermont?

If you want to encourage electric cars over gas cars something like this (but maybe not this) is needed. At the moment you can only really own an EV in NYC if you live in a house and can run electricity out to your driveway. If you’re an apartment dweller and use street parking you’re out of luck, so due to this EV’s aren’t really getting the traction in NYC that they could be getting, which is a shame, as the city is perfect place for these cars.

I mean, I guess if your’re 100% against private cars in cities in general, opposing these sorts of incentives makes sense. But honestly, c’mon guys.

If you want to encourage electric cars over gas cars something like this (but maybe not this) is needed.

I don’t want to encourage cars at all. Electric cars may have less of an environmental impact than gas cars, but they have the same impacts on space and on safety.

We already encourage cars in general (electric and gas alike) by paying for street maintenance and operations out of general city revenues, by giving away free space on city streets to all drivers while their cars are in motion and to most while their cars are parked, and by completely ignoring the environmental and safety impacts. Whether I drive a car, I ride the subway or bus, I cycle, I walk, or I simply stay home, I pay exactly the same into the street system, aside from the cost of parking at a significant minority of parking spaces.

If all of these costs were internalized, then I’d certainly agree to reduce the environmental impact charge for vehicles that have less of an environmental impact. But we’re nowhere close to that point. We already greatly incentivize driving over the use of other modes; I don’t see why we should even further incentivize driving in some types of car. Yes, I’d rather you use an electric car than a gas car – but I’d rather you use a different mode entirely than any kind of car.

Four-wheeled EV’s: Deserve free parking
Two-wheeled EV’s: Deserve to be confiscated by NYPD

There are bike racks in NYC? I’ve seen very few of them.

I think you’re wrong. Right now the biggest barrier for switching to an EV for most drivers in the city (self included) is lack of places to charge nightly.

Right now if I got an EV, I would have nowhere to charge it basically, so it would make my life more difficult compared to my current ICE car. I’d have to make special trips a few times a week to charge points and leave my car there for hours each time; which is a non-starter for me.

However, if a dedicated on-street charging spot was available, i would consider switching. If it was also free parking, I would switch in a heartbeat. I hardly think I’m unique in this respect.

I hear ya (though I may not agree). However, there’s a realpolitic element at play, no?

Take the federal subsidy for electric cars; $6,500. Does it encourage car over other modes? Sure. Did it also jump-start the EV movement here in the US? Yup. So was the end result of EV’s being a thing now worth it? I think so.

For the record, states with higher EV adoption also have a state level tax rebate for EV’s, something NY (sadly) lacks.

> NYC should encourage electric cars—by mandating that any vehicle driven
within city limits after some reasonable date (2025?) must be zero
emissions.

Not possible. You cannot prohibit cars from passing through. But CA can require that cars REGISTERED in the state are zero-emissions; and NY state can follow suit.

> If you’re an apartment dweller in NY, where are you going to charge your EV without going out of your way?

Some apartment buildings have off-street parking. You could start by setting up rules on how landlords and co-op boards are required to respond to requests for charge points. Just like the city recently set up rules guaranteeing bicycle parking access to places of work.

> In that sense I think NYC will massively lag behind the suburbs in EV adoption, which is a shame.

Not so bad because NYC cars get driven so much less, it doesn’t matter what they run on.

So let me give you one use case (mine):

I live in a residential neighborhood in the boros. I work outside the city so I drive (a gas car). Like most residential neighborhoods, there’s free parking on the side streets and metered parking on the main commercial strips. On weekdays, no problem, I park either on the side street near my building, or if I get back too late and there is no space, a two blocks away on the main strip, since I leave before meters take effect anyway. The only issue is Friday night. If i get back too late and all of the non-metered spots are taken, that means I have to park on the metered street, wake up very early on Saturday morning and move my car to the free spots (By morning time there are always spots available).

If there was a free parking, electric only spot that i could reasonably expect to get, I’d readily switch to electric.

And that’s just my specific case. i’m sure you’ll find plenty of people with their own reasoning to why electric makes sense. So your end result would be less gas cars, and a spot of two per block reserved for EVs. Not a bad trade.

In order to be effective you would have to get at least NJ and CT on board as well. That said, on a federal level we can tighten emissions standards to the point that ICE vehicles will be unable to meet them. This would convert most of the fleet to EVs within a decade or so.

I agree, that would be a good idea. Unfortunately, the proposal only allows “let drivers of electric vehicles park for free in metered spaces on Saturdays.” Pretty useless, IMHO.

>Some apartment buildings have off-street parking.
And many do not. You can see how on a street with an apartment building or two, there is usually little to no street parking available at night.

People that already have a garage spot can probably work something out with their building in regards to a charge point; but it would only be for them. A street charge point would serve more people.

>NYC cars get driven so much less, it doesn’t matter what they run on.
True from a climate change perspective, but not from an air quality and noise perspective. A city with majority EVs would be a more pleasant city.

you can charge polluting vehicles a huge fee for passing through

The DOT program for bike corrals is a great program.

Reasonable,

I do enjoy your attempts at dialogue and measured responses to our positions. It’s good and healthy. Thank you.

I don’t want to ban cars, just stop subsidizing their use. I believe we could cut VMT in half simply by eliminating subsidies for mass motoring. That would save around 20,000 lives every year.

I also believe in Manhattan and much of the outer boros, streetspace needs to be reclaimed for humans. I want residential streets to be safe enough for children to play in the street.

Wrong

The NY credit just took effect April 1st. It’s a nice surprise!

What would be a non-pathetic percentage? Bear in mind that at some percentage it is no longer possible to charge EVs from idle capacity and they will be charged at peak hours (and/or all hours will be peak hours), maximizing their impact.