Toronto’s pilot project for 17 on-street parking spots reserved for electric vehicle (EV) owners who want to get a charge in with their car parked has been in action for six months — its halfway point, and evaluating the project revealed that the spots are usually empty — reports The Star.
Toronto Hydro, which powers the charging stations found at the spots, and city officials say that the COVID-19 pandemic is partially to blame for the “modest utilization” of the on-street charging spots, which only cost $2 CAD an hour to use.
Even though many EV owners in Toronto don’t have garages to charge their cars in at home, another reason for the subpar response to the pilot project is that to use them, you must register online with FLO, and have an on-street parking permit to occupy these sports overnight.
A spokesperson for Toronto Hydro also said that the electricity provider is seeing moderate usage, “with more than 170 individual profiles created” since last fall.
A city official said that the project is seeing steady “month over month” growth, with more to be expected as the province recovers from the pandemic. The city currently hopes to expand the project once the pilot ends in September.
The on-street EV parking spots can be found at:
Alton Avenue
Bowmore Road
Mountjoy Avenue
Palmerston Avenue
Shaw Street
Wellington Street West
Westlake Avenue
Ontario hopes to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The province did offer EV rebates of up to $14,000 CAD, but were cancelled when Premier Doug Ford won the 2018 election. The removal of the rebates affected EV sales in the province afterwards.
