LA Announces, Ends Free Parking Program for Clean Air Vehicles

Why it matters:

Because cities and states need to build on existing incentive programs for clean air vehicles, rather than cut them.

Recap:

According to a recent announcement by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the city’s free-parking-for-clean-air-vehicles program…is over.

In 2004, then Mayor Jim Hahn expanded on a program allowing free parking for electric and natural gas vehicles to include hybrids. The program enabled qualifying vehicles to park in “DOT-managed on-and off-street metered parking spaces throughout the City of Los Angeles without depositing coins.” Vehicles were required to have a California Department of Motor Vehicles California Clean Air Vehicle sticker. (The same stickers that allows single-occupancy vehicles to use the carpool lane.)

Sadly, on March 1, 2009 the program came to an end. So now you must feed those meters.

Commentary:

Clever readers will note that the free parking program is being referred to in the past tense. If this is the first time you’re hearing about the program, you’re not alone… But you ARE too late.

The City of Los Angeles is currently in a bit of a financial bind, and officials are struggling to find money wherever they can. It’s not terribly surprising that a free-parking program is getting the axe, but it is disappointing.

Even more disappointing is the state of California’s previously mentioned Clean Air Vehicle program, which allowed marked vehicles to use the carpool lane. Once extended to electric, natural gas, and hybrid vehicles, stickers are no longer being issued to the latter. (Much to the alarm of many new hybrid owners.) But the privileged 85,000 who got in under the wire will continue to reap the rewards, and stickers are still being issued to natural gas and electric vehicles (your 2005 CNG Escalade is safe… That is, until 2011 when the program expires entirely).

If it sounds like California is throwing in the towel on greener cars, take heart. After a protracted battle with the EPA under the Bush administration, California’s pleas for higher emissions standards and better fuel economy are finally being heard. The federal government recently adopted the California standards (on a slightly altered timeline).

Certainly systemic changes within the auto industry are a more effective way of reducing emissions than any municipal or state-wide incentive program, but the new standards won’t be taking effect until 2016. How can we reduce vehicle emissions in the meantime?