A Toronto man hoping to make the switch to an electric vehicle was left frustrated after consulting and working with the city for more than a year and a half, only to have his request to build a parking pad to support a charging station denied.
I think the counsellor has it right. Letting hundreds of thousands of people build front parking pads isn’t the way.
Not for every case but the NOW problem is getting EVs accepted. Eventually with public support and pressure a long term solution could be implemented, like streetside chargers.
The NOW problem is to invest in public transit.
EVs aren’t going to help much. It’s still just a big pile of plastics and petroleum based lube and a whole lot of precious metals being mined by companies that produce a lot of pollution in countries with shady human rights.
Why should I have to pay for transit that I don’t use?
- every car owner
While they sit alone in their car in heavy traffic.
Wait, is this all over the fact that he wants a fancy charging pad instead of the basic wall plug setup that most people use? If getting an electric car is so important to him, why not just get the regular charging setup?
Per the article, it’s because he has a shared driveway. If he has to park on the street, he may need a very long extension cord to use a regular charger…
Plenty of people have long extensions. Again, not that difficult if the claim is that it is very important for the environment to switch to an EV.
Umm… I was joking about the extension cord, you absolutely cannot run an extension cord down the road, across sidewalks, and to your EV car… you need to be able to park at your house to charge, which isn’t necessarily an option when you have a shared driveway.
How long is your driveway? Not everyone lives on an estate
You’re still not getting it… if his car has to be parked on the street, possibly not that close to his actual house, he is not allowed to run an extension cord across a side walk and down the street… it’s completely impractical.
This sounds like a story about someone wanting to convert their front garden into a parking space not actually about green issues at all. Whether it’s EV or not, it does have its own issues.
Water run off causing flooding is a real concern. Not from one person but if you scale this up to 1000s of people and you’re replacing large areas of water absorbent surface with sources of runoff.
Also reducing green space in cities is an environmental issue - trees help reduce the urban heat island effect which can reduce the peak ambient temperature of the city. This makes cities more liveable and does impact the use of air conditioning. I would trust the city tree expert on the idea moving a tree is likely to damage it.
I get is frustration that neighbours have gotten permission in the past. As long as the council are being consistent going forward though, its just tough luck. He can work with his neighbour on sharing their driveway
All of that was addressed in the article… his new pad design included accommodations for drainage (they always do…)
He offered to pay to move the tree as well as pay for 5 new trees to be planted.
It also addressed the neighbor issue… in that, what happens if his neighbor moves? He can’t rely on the next neighbor (or the one after that, etc) being so cooperative.
Well, at least he had the foresight to tackle the charging pad issue before buying an electric car.
This decision is so stupid that it makes me wonder if it’s petty revenge on the part of the city. “Oh, the guy who nagged us about planting a tree now wants our permission to move that tree? He can go fuck himself.”
Better solution is to have the city install multiple chargers on his street, and treat them as parking-while-charging-only.
I’m not in Toronto, but the city installed a twin car charger across the street from my place, and I’d say it’s in use 50% of the time from 8am to 8pm. It’s rare someone would need to charge overnight unless they rolled in at near 0%.
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Yet again the public message is “Canada is green” but the personal message is “you should be greener.”
Parkdale-High Park Coun. Gord Perks actively spoke out against Bishop’s proposal at community council
Better title: Crotchety old fuck hates cars, even the electric ones.
