Posted on 08/02/2015 2:29:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A first-of-its-kind car-sharing program will give residents of Los Angeles' neglected neighborhoods access to carbon-free transportation.
Electric vehicles have helped people save money and curb their greenhouse gas emissions. But for those with less cash to spare, those benefits have been largely out of reach.
Now a first-of-its-kind E.V. car-sharing program in Los Angeles aims to put the citys low-income residentssome of whom have to walk a mile to the closest bus stopbehind the wheel of convenient and carbon-free transportation.
It will help improve the lives of every Angeleno in these neighborhoods by offering them options they dont have, said Matt Petersen, Los Angeles chief sustainability officer. The program will advance Los Angeles goals of clean air, use of mass transit, and increased access to mass transit.
The $1.6 million state-funded programwhich is part of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcettis sustainability plan, an ambitious effort that seeks to improve environmental health in the citys most disadvantaged neighborhoods by 2025. Funding comes from the proceeds of Californias carbon cap-and-trade program.
The program, part of the state's Charge Ahead initiative, will put 80 to 100 electric cars on the road sometime next year and build electric vehicle charging stations in the working-class neighborhoods of Westlake, Pico Union, Boyle Heights, and Koreatown. By making the cars available for up to 7,000 drivers, it will eliminate the potential purchase of 1,000 gas-powered cars and 2,150 tons of CO2 emissions a year, Petersen said.
Anyone will be able to use the cars by paying a membership fee and hourly rates. Those who meet specific income requirementsstill to be determinedwill receive a discount. Carpoolers will also pay less than solo drivers.
The service wants to benefit Angelenos such as Rosa, a Mexican immigrant and Koreatown resident who walks a mile to take the bus for her daily trip to the grocery store, according to Brady Collins, the development associate for Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, a neighborhood nonprofit organization.
Just a few months ago, Rosa showed me a notebook with about 1,000 signatures she collected, Collins said. She wanted to petition Metro to get a bus stop closer to where residents live.
KIWAwhich organizes campaigns for the benefit of the neighborhoods predominantly Latino, Korean, Bangladeshi, and African American communityis one of the community groups advising the city on how to implement the car-sharing program.
Koreatowns poverty rate is three times higher than the Los Angeles County average, and many residents rely on public transportation to take them to jobs across town, Collins said.
For example, a number of Koreatown residents are domestic care workers and may need to get to Beverly Hills on the west side of L.A., he said. In those situations, it could take an hour and a half to two hours on the bus, whereas in a car it could take 25 minutes.
Though added access to a car may speed up resident commutes, Petersen believes that in many cases, residents will use the car-sharing program to get them to crosstown rapid transit bus lines more quickly.
This gives them a lower-cost option to meet their needs in situations that can only be served through a vehicle, he said. It helps provide options for the last-mile and first-mile connections with mass transit.
Who’s going to insure this fiasco?
And these people vote!
I give it less than an hour before the first one gets a poop hand-smear somewhere inside it.
Sheesh, guy, that was 78 years ago and was a myth even then! Great Depression economics made it unaffordable to expand with the population. San Francisco was a geographically limited area, so it kept the streetcars! You are beating the 6-7th generation dead horse here. If you've got more than one neuron, rub them together!
Surely you know the answer to this...
The recharging is all done from nuclear power plants?.
Past is prologue...
This. Barry’s new “sweeping” carbon regs. Energy prices go up. The middle class is once again torpedoed and those with the “free” cars will get to fill up with the juice for free and electric rates for cooling/heating skyrocket. Just as this Administration has planned.
Those that can do something to stop Barack, either won’t or can’t.
I have an EV, a LEAF. Here’s what I think will go wrong...
Someone won’t plug it in. Next person won’t recharge it before borrowing, they’ll just drive - and run out, leaving out on the road wherever it stops.
The chargers are expensive, and hardly robust to wanton abuse. They’ll get run over or cables just yanked out. Easily damaged, slow to repair. Think pay phones (for those of us old enough to remember them, and who know why they’re history).
They’ll get stolen. Many of the batteries are nothing more than a cubic yard of AA rechargeables. There will be a black market for expensive parts like motors.
They’ll get trashed inside and out, no personal incentive to care for it or the next driver or the prior user’s mess.
They’ll get wrecked in bad driving. The extremely high torque is fun to abuse, and ruins tires fast (my first tires, rated for 65k miles, lasted 17k without abuse).
“Privilege” is the natural rewards of good behavior. There’s a reason some subcultures don’t come by EVs easily.
I’ve been to Koreatown.....and you’re right.
We're getting a fleet here in Indianapolis for a similar deal. Although instead of the (pretty reliable) Leafs, we're getting Bollores made in France! That should be even more fun.
Uh, why don’t we give them low emission bicycles?
Or golf carts
Dayum
Uh, why don’t we give them low emission bicycles?
Or golf carts
Dayum
It's LA. Everything is a long way from everything else. In particular they give examples of the household servants from the 'hood commuting to where the beautiful people live.
Well why don’t they just go full Dr Zhivago and let the poor move into the houses where they now mow the lawns and clean the pools?
Then they don’t have to commute
I’m guessing NONE of the beautiful people in LA would sign up for that part. They just want to send YOUR tax $$$ to these folks.
No bureaucrat has bought her a refrigerator?
When you just give someone something for free, don’t expect them to treat it as if they had worked hard to get it. I expect these cars will be trashed in short order, as well as be used to commit crimes.
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