Maybe the least diverse city council in the country – all young women with the same ideology — should hold off just a bit on mandating that all new surface parking lots with at least 15 stalls be made ready with electrical conduits or raceway connections for electric vehicle charging stations.
First of all, I had to look up raceway connections, even as certain as I was that it had nothing to do with the speed at which an EV might be juiced up. A raceway connection is merely an enclosed conduit that provides a physical pathway for the wiring. Got it.
Secondly, the gals presumably share the same ridiculous and unproven idea that electric vehicles will save the Earth from humankind’s footprint. They won’t, nor can most people even afford them. The people who can afford them most typically live in houses, not in the Lego Block square multi-family boxes that are eating up every square inch of St. Paul and whose occupants most often can afford neither the electric vehicle nor a house.
Yes, but our city council might be arguing that “soon the manufacturers will be producing new low-cost EVs to meet the growing demand and when they do, we’ll be ready.”
What growing demand? The manufacturers want out of this misguided folly. The manufacturers are losing their shirts on these EVs. They are cutting back production, not hustling to make cheaper ones.
If consumers want an EV, more power to them, an unavoidable pun considering the unimaginable strain on a currently inadequate electric grid if the country went all in on EVs. We’d be lucky to have a working toaster, much less lights and heat.
But our parking lots will be ready. Which brings us to hopefully holding off on this mandate. Do you really want to put more copper wiring on the streets? Our feral thieves don’t need a new supply of copper. They are currently feasting on streetlights, leaving many of them with sprung access panels and debris on the boulevards from the innards not worth stealing.
Gov. Tim Walz and Mayor Melvin Carter met out at Como Regional Park the other day and stared forlornly at some deadened streetlights, apparently meeting to tout a new legislative proposal to require anyone selling copper metal to have a state-issued license. There really is no way at the scrap yard to tell where the wire comes from or if it is stolen.
A license might help, but it presupposes a car full of feral thieves will spot a streetlight not yet molested and say, “Gee, guys, we better not break that one apart. We don’t have a license.”
The way we are governed by a trifecta of DFL unicorns I’m surprised the legislation doesn’t call for holding the manufacturers of the streetlights responsible for primitive design work that failed to anticipate the theft of the wire.
Something better work. Too many streets are eerily dark, too many sidewalks troubled by shadow. Theft of wire last year from streetlights cost us $1.2 million, and the amount is growing.
In the meantime, the streetlights that are working are left on 24 hours a day, even on the sunniest days. I guess if you tried to strip a live one, you could get electrocuted.
The council should reconsider their mandate on charging stations before all that wire disappears. Might as well wait to see if a demand actually materializes.
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.
Related Articles
Jordan Rodell: Proposed Minnesota social media legislation would undermine First Amendment protections
Real World Economics: Econ 101 explains district budgeting dilemmas
Skywatch: The lion has the hunter on the run
Your Money: Train your brain to make better money decisions
Working Strategies: Getting experience in your new career path
Leave a Reply