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November 9, 2009 Section 4: Transportation and Land Use strongly consider purchasing flexible fuel plug-in hybrids if they are manufactured. There is no financial commitment involved in making a "soft" fleet order. While a variety of other low carbon fuel sources, such as hydrogen and compressed natural gas, have been previously under development for use to replace gasoline and diesel, electric vehicles are believed to be one of the most viable emerging low carbon fuel sources. This is due to the relatively low infrastructure barriers to entry, mainly an existing power grid infrastructure and commercially available hybrid electric vehicles already highly popular on the market. PHEV are also arguably one of the most fuel efficient vehicles, in terms of reducing our dependence on foreign oil, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.20 The City has applied for a Federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant for funding of the new Downtown parking garage which includes an electric battery swap station and one level of parking for electric vehicles. This project is being pursued in conjunction with the BetterPlace, aventure-backed company based in Palo Alto that aims to reduce global dependency on petroleum through the creation of a market-based transportation infrastructure supporting electric vehicles . A number of measures and actions are presented below to promote the adoption of fuel efficient and low carbon vehicles, as well as efficient vehicle operations: ^ Make existing traffic flow more efficiently to reduce the amount of time people spend idling in city traffic. Improve vehicle detection to minimize car idling at traffic signals. Improve signal timing along arterials. Improve signal communication to allow rapid diagnosing and repair at traffic signals. ^ Provide preferred and designated parking for more fuel efficient vehicles, such as zero emissions vehicles and hybrid vehicles. Preferred and designated parking should be located near key destinations and reduces time spent searching for parking. ^ Continue working towards implementing plug-in stations at various locations throughout the City. Increasing the number of plug-in stations will increase the convenience and availability of electric "fuel" for hybrid and all-electric vehicles. ^ Provide incentives in City parking and transportation demand management policies for developers and business owners that provide charging stations for plug-in 20 Source: EPRI. "Environmental Assessment of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles. Volume 1: Nationwide Greenhouse Gas Emissions." Accessed at: http:/lmydocs.epri.com/docs/public/PHEV-ExecSum-vol1.pdf ..~{ ~~~ao Page 34 a