'The situation at HI airports need to be fixed'
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/08/electric_avenue_long-term_loop.html 'Electric Avenue' long-term loophole raises questions about parking use: Editorial Agenda 2015 August 06, 2015 [images http://imgick.oregonlive.com/home/olive-media/width960/img/oregonian/photo/2015/08/06/wedleaf2jpg-8b1112c3e5c12fc3.jpg Portland General Electric's new "Electric Avenue" on Salmon Street occupies a two-hour zone, but electric-car operators have used an unmarked button on the pay station to produce permits allowing them to park all day / Erik Lukens http://media.oregonlive.com/opinion_impact/photo/agenda-2013jpg-da8a3522a991b9c6.jpg Editorial Agenda 2015 ] Parking on Portland General Electric's new "Electric Avenue" appears to the casual observer to be limited to two hours. Because, you know, the sign surrounded by charging stations says so (see photo). A person using one of the two conventional parking spaces on the same block would thus break out a credit card and dutifully pay $3.20 for the allotted two hours. Some owners of electric cars and plug-in hybrids parked next to the pay station know something most other people do not, however. The same pay station that produces only two-hour permits for everyone else will print long-term permits for them. One Nissan Leaf parked in an electric-vehicle-only spot next to the parking pay station Thursday displayed a parking permit bought at 7:22 a.m. and good through 4:32 p.m. – nine hours and 10 minutes. A nearby Chevy Volt displayed a permit good for about seven and a half hours. Both drivers paid for the parking, but received a free charge and – not incidentally - full-work-day, primo parking spots in an ostensibly two-hour zone. What gives? The row of parking spaces on Salmon Street adjacent to PGE's World Trade Center headquarters replaces a similar "Electric Avenue" on Portland State University's campus that closed this summer. With the city's permission, PGE tripled the number of on-street parking spaces reserved for electric vehicles at the site. There are now six, which share the half-block stretch with two pre-existing general-use spaces. Parking at the new "Electric Avenue," which opened late last month, is supposed to be limited to two hours, PGE spokesman Steve Corson told The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board Wednesday. In a July 8 letter to the city, in fact, PGE Senior Vice President James Lobdell explained the company's intent to provide "charging at short term parking spaces for electric vehicles." The effort, he wrote, is a "learning experience" involving the gathering of usage data. After a couple of years, the company may seek to replicate the model elsewhere in Portland. The long-term loophole is triggered by pushing an unmarked yellow button on the two-hour pay station. This calls up a new display allowing operators of electric vehicles to print permits to park all day. The old "Electric Avenue" similarly allowed users to park for an extended period. In any case, Portland Bureau of Transportation spokesman Dylan Rivera thanked us for calling the pay station's double standard to his attention and said it would be adjusted to reflect the two-hour zone in which it sits. Fair enough. But even as the electric-vehicle loophole closes, its brief exploitation raises a question the city and Portlanders should consider with an eye toward the future proliferation of public charging spaces reserved for electric vehicles: Are they about fuel or low-competition parking? In a guest column responding to a July editorial, PGE Vice President Carol Dillin argued that electric vehicle drivers "expect to have reliable, working places to charge their vehicles during the day ... to ensure they don't run out of fuel." Some charging infrastructure is surely necessary to achieve that end, but consider how some of the cars we tracked this week actually used "Electric Avenue." Editorial Agenda 2015 Make Portland a city that works -Get pot right -Smart choices for education -Help rural Oregon -Keep people and goods moving -Foster small business growth -Track health reforms Read more [ http://topics.oregonlive.com/tag/editorial%20agenda%202015/index.html ] about the editorial board's priorities for Oregon. The Leaf with the nine-hour permit was parked at a charger every working day this week, in each case with a permit covering roughly the entire work day. The zip code in which the car is registered corresponds to Salem. Given the Leaf's roughly 80 mile range, refueling is probably necessary, though presumably this could be accomplished within a two-hour period at the quick-charge station into which it was plugged Thursday. Such stations are supposed to provide 80 percent of a full charge in 30 minutes. We spotted two other cars with long-term permits this week. One, another Leaf, is registered in the Milwaukie area, which suggests that it might not need on-street refueling at all, much less the six-hour stay at a charging station its permit allowed. The other, a Volt, is a plug-in hybrid registered in the Gresham area. The same car occupied a spot on "Electric Avenue" Wednesday and Thursday – more recently on a seven-hour permit. Because they have gasoline motors, plug-in hybrids aren't at risk of conking out when their batteries run low and thus don't need on-street charging at all, much less seven consecutive hours in a public space. Yet they're entitled to use electric-vehicle charging spots. In the end, city officials may not care whether electric-vehicle operators use reserved public parking for necessary refueling or for convenience. But the difference is likely to matter to many of their constituents and entails two different policy discussions. Before the "Electric Avenue" concept expands, the people who pay for and use Portland's streets deserve to know why it's being done, who's going to benefit and how. [© oregonlive.com] http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/29755460/exclusive-electric-vehicles-park-free-for-days-weeks-at-airports Exclusive: Electric vehicles park free for days, weeks at airports Aug 10, 2015 By Keoki Kerr HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Electric car owners are taking advantage of a loophole and for three years have been parking free at state airports when the law originally passed was only supposed to give them 24 hours of free parking. At Honolulu International Airport, the daily parking rate is $15. State legislators approved a law in 2012 allowing drivers of EVs to get 24 hours of free parking at airports across the state, regardless of whether they were using charging stations or even parking in special designated parking spots. But sources told Hawaii News Now that Honolulu International Airport users who drive electric cars are routinely getting days and even weeks of free parking, so sometimes parking charges of $300 or more than $400 are zeroed out and they drive off not paying a cent. "It's being abused, obviously," said State Sen. Mike Gabbard, who chaired the Senate energy committee for seven years. Gabbard was one of the first people on Oahu to buy an electric car four years ago. But he said the situation at airports needs to be fixed. "It's not fair, I mean, come on. The incentives are there to encourage people to get an EV, save on their gas bills and also decrease the amount of oil we're importing every year," Gabbard said. Gabbard said state lawyers and Department of Transportation officials determined the language in the original 2012 law was unenforceable, so the state has allowed EVs to park for free for days and weeks over the last three years. "But there's a limit, people should follow the law and so that's why we're trying to get the language firmed up so it's enforceable," Gabbard said. State DOT officials said about 500 electric cars a month park at Honolulu International Airport for longer than a day, meaning that the airport loses out on about one percent of its parking revenue because of the loophole. Gabbard said attempts to tighten up the airport EV parking law in 2014 and 2015 were unsuccessful, but he will try again next legislative session. Airport users were surprised at the loophole. "From my understanding of the electrical vehicle industry, there are already a lot of subsidies and encouragements out there as is. I don't think there's anything further needed, said Chuck Bergman of Wahiawa. 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