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Finding a place to park your car in Woodside town center can be a trying experience, depending on the time of day. Finding a place to park your electric car and recharge its battery? Forget about it. For now.
There are no publicly or commercially operated electric vehicle charging stations in the town center, at least not to the knowledge of Town Manager Kevin Bryant. But the Town Council will be inviting the public to participate in at least one discussion on installing and setting up charging stations.
The council, when it met on Oct. 10, considered a brief report by Mr. Bryant and Councilman Chris Shaw that looked into the costs and logistics of installing eight charging stations at Town Hall and the public library.
The report recommended using charging stations by SemaConnect, a company based in Maryland that maintains some 6,000 stations across the country and in Canada, a company spokesman told the council. After a $25,000 installation fee, the town would pay a $1,920 annual service charge for eight charging stations and keep any revenue from drivers paying to use the stations.
Charging stations would address one of 11 energy efficiency goals in the town’s climate action plan, approved by the council in 2015. Charging stations are finding their way into Woodside homes. Residents installed 14 in 2016, according to an annual report on Woodside’s climate plan.
A number of questions were raised during the council meeting. Among them:
n Will parking spaces equipped with the charging stations be exclusively for electric vehicles?
n Should merchants play a role in determining the location of charging stations in exchange for allowing access to the public?
n How many charging stations should there be?
Parking spaces with charging stations tend to be reserved for electric vehicles, a point resident Marilyn Voelke brought up in the context of putting stations at the library, where there are about 22 spaces.
“I personally would hate to see one of those (spaces) taken for the exclusive use of one of those charging stations,” she said. Parking is an issue, and eight parking places is a significant issue, Ms. Voelke added. “I think you are going to get a lot of push back.”
Resident Dick Brown agreed. “If you’re taking parking spaces away, that’s a hot button,” he said.
When someone is weighing the purchase of an electric vehicle, the availability of charging stations at home and at work can be a deciding factor, Councilman Daniel Yost said. It was Mr. Yost who suggested involving businesses interests in determining where to locate the stations.
Councilwoman Anne Kasten called the matter an opportunity for community engagement. “If we do this without community input, we might get a lot of input later,” she said.
Councilman Shaw suggested that parking spaces with charging stations need not be set aside for electric vehicles only.
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