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Reserved Curb Spaces For Electric Vehicles To Be Phased Out

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Reserved curbside parking for electric vehicles in Philadelphia is dead.

City Council got legislation at this week's session that would halt new spaces and phase out existing ones. The bill coincided with the release of the EV Policy Task Force report.

Council suspended the EV parking space program last year amid neighbor complaints, and promised the task force would work on a new policy.

Neither the report, nor the legislation, though, has specific suggestions for replacing the curbside spaces. The bill formalizes the elimination of the spaces, over a 15 year period, and the report refers in a general way to encouraging EV charging installation in off-street parking facilities and exploring public-private partnerships with charging infrastructure providers.

The bill's sponsor David Oh says more work will be done on those goals, but he's focused on getting rid of the reserved spaces.

"The last thing we were doing was not sustainable, could not last," he said.

Bill co-sponsor Mark Squilla acknowledges current EV owners are likely to be disappointed.

"Does it seem fair to those folks? No, it doesn't seem fair to those folks," he said.

Squilla hopes the 15 year phase out will provide enough time to follow through on creating more off-street charging stations.

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