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 city’s low-income residents—some of whom have to walk a mile to the closest bus stop—behind 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 don’t 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 program—which is part of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s sustainability plan, an ambitious effort that seeks to improve environmental health in the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods by 2025. Funding comes from the proceeds of California’s 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 requirements—still to be determined—will 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.”
KIWA—which organizes campaigns for the benefit of the neighborhood’s predominantly Latino, Korean, Bangladeshi, and African American community—is one of the community groups advising the city on how to implement the car-sharing program.
Koreatown’s 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.”
Gee, I wonder whether this will work.
po’ folks wont need to steal cars to rob banks.. they can just rent one of these things.. on their EBT.. Progress.
Oh, boy - Obamamobiles.
Doesn’t NYC have some sort of bicycle sharing program?
"Neglected neighborhoods" = trashed by their residents.
Go into a Walmart restroom in one of those neighborhoods and you will see what the interiors of these cars will look like in less than a month.
The stupidity of liberalism just keeps growing and growing.
Exactly, just like they’ll trash the cars.
Minneapolis had a bike sharing program, and all the bikes were stolen or trashed within a month!
Of course, someone else will pay for the electricity they plug the damn things into..............
If we own a car, we’re evil because we aren’t taking the bus.
Yah...I know.Use of the word "work" constitutes a "microaggression".
Read the comments there.
Just think of the damage that can be done to and with cars!
What’s the over and under on when the 1st stolen one is sold in Mexico?
Uh, neither the manufacture, recharging, maintainence or program administration are free from releasing emissions of that black racis’ element Carbon. The reporters are retards, every one.
What happened to the train? Wonder how much money can be made from taking these cars to a chop shop or perhaps they can just drive them to the store to get water to drink.
How long before knives start flashing at a stop where two “angelinos” claim that the car is there for them?
I walk my dog four miles each day, for my health. I try to only go to the food store once a week. I hate taking the bus.
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