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<br />December 21, 2009 Section 4: Transportation and Land Use <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Page 36 <br />strongly consider purchasing flexible fuel plug-in hybrids if they are manufactured. There is no <br />financial commitment involved in making a ―soft‖ fleet order. <br />While a variety of other low carbon fuel sources, such as hydrogen and compressed natural <br />gas, have been previously under development for use to replace gasoline and diesel, electric <br />vehicles are believed to be one of the most viable emerging low carbon fuel sources. This is <br />due to the relatively low infrastructure barriers to entry, mainly an existing power grid <br />infrastructure and commercially available hybrid electric vehicles already highly popular on the <br />market. PHEV are also arguably one of the most fuel efficient vehicles, in terms of reducing our <br />dependence on foreign oil, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.21 <br />The City has applied for a Federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery <br />(TIGER) grant for funding of the new Downtown parking garage which includes an electric <br />battery swap station and one level of parking for electric vehicles. This project is being pursued <br />in conjunction with the BetterPlace, a venture-backed company based in Palo Alto that aims to <br />reduce global dependency on petroleum through the creation of a market-based transportation <br />infrastructure supporting electric vehicles . <br />A number of measures and actions are presented below to promote the adoption of fuel efficient <br />and low carbon vehicles, as well as efficient vehicle operations: <br /> Make existing traffic flow more efficiently to reduce the amount of time people spend <br />idling in city traffic. Improve vehicle detection to minimize car idling at traffic signals. <br />Improve signal timing along arterials. Improve signal communication to allow rapid <br />diagnosing and repair at traffic signals. <br /> Provide preferred and designated parking for more fuel efficient vehicles, such as <br />zero emissions vehicles and hybrid vehicles. Preferred and designated parking should <br />be located near key destinations and reduces time spent searching for parking. <br /> Continue working towards implementing plug-in stations at various locations <br />throughout the City. Increasing the number of plug-in stations will increase the <br />convenience and availability of electric ―fuel‖ for hybrid and all-electric vehicles. <br /> Provide incentives in City parking and transportation demand management policies <br />for developers and business owners that provide charging stations for plug-in <br /> <br />21 Source: EPRI. ―Environmental Assessment of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles. Volume 1: Nationwide Greenhouse <br />Gas Emissions.‖ Accessed at: http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/public/PHEV-ExecSum-vol1.pdf