Parking meter hours lengthen Wednesday
The city gave drivers a break on parking meter schedules downtown, but that’s over as of Wednesday.
I have a tangentially related question. There’s an electric car charging pole at the corner of my street. People use it. When they plug in, do they have to pay?
Joey 17:14 on 2023-11-14 Permalink
Those charging stations (more power than a wall outlet, less power than the ‘fast’ chargers that you find on highways, etc.) cost $1.00/hour and can fill a typical EV battery in something like 6-8 hours, depending on the battery size, etc (fast chargers can bring a battery from 20% to 80% in about half an hour).
Note that only EVs that are plugged in and charging are allowed to park in these spaces, though you will often see non-EVs or EVs that are not actively charging occupying these spaces – which is a major issue for drivers who don’t have a home charging option and rely on this public infrastructure to fill their car batteries. Nobody parks in front of a gas pump, right?
In busy areas, e.g., downtown, these spaces are metered like any other, so you pay for both parking and time used. In residential areas, there’s no parking fee (and usually resident stickers don’t apply), so you just pay the charging time. In moderately busy areas where parking is metered, often the spaces reserved for EV charging are not metered, so it’s actually cheaper to park and charge than to park somewhere else, plus you get to replenish your battery; there’s no rhyme or reason to this: there are two municipal parking lots with EV spots around Laurier W, within a few meters of each other; one has metered spots, one doesn’t.
Last, Montreal’s EV infrastructure is great. We were in Toronto with our EV earlier this year and really struggled to find a charger that was accessible and affordable – almost every option consisted of an expensive fast charger in an expensive underground garage.
Orr 18:29 on 2023-11-14 Permalink
I understand this is changing from a time-plugged-in pricing model to a energy-transferred pricing model?
steph 18:34 on 2023-11-14 Permalink
It shouldn’t be difficult to implement a city meterage for time plugged in post charge (at the higher rate)
Joey 10:00 on 2023-11-15 Permalink
@Orr, yes that’s my understanding. I think there was a green light needed (and issued) by whoever governs measurements in Canada. I’m not sure if they are going to change pricing for the more common medium-speed chargers or just the fast chargers, where the amount of electricity consumed varies considerably from car to car and individual charger to charger (in addition to varying based on temperature, battery status, etc.). The medium speed chargers probably generate a more consistent amount of electricity. An hourly rate for the medium-speed ‘neighbourhood’ chargers makes sense to me, just as much as a kwh charge for fast chargers seems logical (with a penalty built in for staying plugged in once charging has ended or passed a high threshold, like 90%).