While visiting friends and family in Philadelphia recently, I noticed the sign in the picture shown.
Electric vehicle parking only. An official sign. The electric car wasn’t parked in the space when I walked by (instead a little orange cone, holding the spot, was sitting in the road). However, what was visible was an electrical cord, with a regular-looking outlet, hanging out of the basement window of the house in front of which the parking spot was designated.
This brought to mind a few questions: one, does the city of Philadelphia designate parking spots specifically for electric vehicles (EVs)? And second, do most/any/all EVs plug into a regular in-home electrical outlet?
Doing a quick Google search, I found that the answer to the first question is yes! Philadelphia DOES support EV parking! Way back in September of 2007, the city enacted Bill 070788 in support: “entitled “Electric Vehicle Parking,” to provide for the designation of electric vehicle on-street parking spaces where only electric vehicles may be parked.”
So the owner of an EV in Philly can apply for a for an on-street EV-only parking space in front of their residence. The bill doesn’t say that the spot is reserved only for their personal EV, per se, but instead that the spot is reserved for EVs in general. (However, it would seem unlikely that the owner of an EV would park in a space that’s not theirs for a long period of time, owing to the fact that the car would eventually need to be charged.)
In terms of the second question, I checked out some of the top EVs online to see what the specs were in terms of how, and where, to plug them in. The Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, and Tesla Roadster all provide 2 charging options: a standard 120V household outlet plug-in option, or a ‘charging doc’ at 220V (which typically requires in-house installation). The literature states that it takes longer to fully charge the car using the standard plug it as opposed to 220V option, but the fact that the 120V option is available for all cars means that a curb-side charging is truly a possibility for city car owners (at least, in Philly it is!).
So in terms of adoption of special EV parking in other cities, since I’m a NYC city-dweller and a car owner, I did some research to see if NYC had a comparable plan to the one in Philly. For me, I had never thought that an EV was even an option due to the ‘where to plug it in?’ question – after all, many people here don’t have garages. Seeing the plan in Philly made me wonder if I made a wrong assumption. However, no such parking plan currently exists in NYC. A a study listed on the PlaNYC website discusses the viability of EVs for folks living here, but sadly focuses on asking the EV owner to park in a lot (and often to pay a fee to do so) where plug-in technology is available, as opposed to providing an on-street parking option… so NYC is lagging behind Philly in this regard.
That being said, it’s great to know that in places like Philly, the support for EVs is outstanding, with the added bonus that for the EV owner they will never have to search for parking again!
