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LA to reserve spaces for parking, charging electric vehicles
Sustainability Sep 14, 2022
| Photo courtesy of Michael Marais/Unsplash
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Certain spaces on Los Angeles streets will be reserved for people to park and charge electric vehicles after the City Council approved an ordinance Tuesday.
The ordinance authorizes the Department of Transportation to mark off stalls or spaces on public streets or publicly owned parking facilities exclusively for electric vehicles. It also makes it illegal for a person to park in such spaces unless the vehicle is connected for electric charging.
The ordinance comes weeks after the state’s Air Resources Board approved a ban on the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles in California by 2035.
Los Angeles has the largest network of curbside electric vehicles in the country, with over 430 in place, according to a motion filed by Councilwoman Nithya Raman in April.
Raman called for streamlining the process for the city to install chargers, “to help ensure that the city is able to meet its goal for the decarbonization of the transportation sector in the coming decade.”
The Studio City Neighborhood Council voted 10-2 to oppose the ordinance, unless the city agreed to come up with a formula keeping the number of exclusive parking spaces below the number of electric vehicles in Los Angeles.
“Over time, as the electric vehicle percentage increases, so can the percentage of exclusive electric vehicle parking spaces,” the Neighborhood Council said in its statement. “To blindly create too many exclusive electric parking spaces now, would only serve to punish those who may not be able to afford their first electric vehicle at present.”
