Come late October, we are having an election in Ontario, electing our municipal government, in my case in Toronto, a mayor and a city council need electing. With that, its time to discuss some ideas that might help speed the transition away from fossil fuels. Surprisingly there is an awful lot municipal government can do to green the planet.
Looking at the campaign literature flowing through my mailbox, there is sadly, little in terms of environmental issues (see for example this and that), with social issues, safety and affordability dominating the campaigns. But change as they say starts somewhere, so lets suggest a few things for our candidates who wish to tirelessly work to better our city. We divide things into three categories: Easy, take a stand, and visionary.
Easy
Lets start by discussing easy ideas that might seem small, but all work to take friction out of your green journey.
- Bump the 5m2 limit on building permits for rooftop solar, a solar panel is about 2 m2, hence a 5 m2 limit is only 2-3 panels. Something like 40 m2 would be more suitable for a single family home (source, and source)
- EV parking and charging fees. If I am paying for a L2 charging session, why do I have to pay again for charging? Just bake it all into the charging fee, make life easier for everyone.
- Overnight EV parking and charging. To really enjoy the cheapest rates on Toronto’s EV charging network, I need to park my EV overnight. This gets tricky, as many of the stations are located on streets with overnight parking restrictions that should be loosened. If you are plugged in and charging, that should be payment enough. For gods sake, just pay once, whatever it is. Make life easy!
- Just bought a new EV? Toronto should make things easy, craft a booklet for new EV owner with stuff they need to succeed, oh and here is a FLO card with some pre-paid money on it.
- Let EVs use the city high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes. Harmonize with the province on this one, and let green plate vehicles use the HOV lanes (source).
Take a stand
For some slightly more controversy, perhaps the bolder candidate could propose the following.
- More E-buses. With the price of Diesel at all time highs (source), put those dirty Diesels out of their misery.
- Turbocharge the charging station build out. 500+ charging stations is a great start, but we need so many more. People with EVs living in apartments need EV charging just as much as I do, why is there no station in Thorncliff park for example. Do better (source).
- Put some sensibility into the process where people in condo’s and apartments want to install at home charging. A 2023 report is full of good ideas, go implement them (source).
- Keep the bike-lanes. A fine way to waste 50M$ would be to rip out the lovely bike-lanes that Toronto has put in. Cycling is a viable alternative for loads of people, keep them safe (source).
- Balcony solar. This one technically belongs to Ford, who seems to believe that electricity should only be generated in big, expensive, conservative voting power plants. But, the city should be able to find some way to at least pilot the idea of a 1 kW say, balcony, plug-in solar. Perhaps pulling some friction out of the solar permitting process to make such small solar projects more feasible (source).
- Battery only export. Have a home battery? Why not share the juice with your neighbours and shave dollars off your power-bill?
Visionary
And of course, for those truly brave candidates out there, here are some long shots.
- Implement an ultra low emissions zone in down-town Toronto. Often quoted as the driver to EV adoption in cities such as Shanghai (source), keep our kids lungs clean by keeping those dirty fossil burners out (source).
- Parking pads for EVs. This one gets a lot of scorn, parking pads allow residents to park their cars in the front yard, often the only type of parking conceivable on their property. If they got an EV, perhaps they should be allowed to park there, at least while charging.
- Tie building permits to electric trucks. There are so many diesel burners hogging construction sites, start the change, if you want to build something, its gotta be done using low emissions trucks, and electric equipment. A quiet site keeps the neighbours happier (source).
With that, I do hope my dear reader (and likely campaigner), have gotten some ideas to share with your voters on how we can all green the city.
