Car-sharing services slam bylaw
Car-sharing services say regulations will increase costs, limit expansion
After vaunting its plans to encourage car-sharing services in Montreal, the Coderre administration is actually putting the brakes on the environmentally friendly practice, say the heads of the city’s two competing car-sharing operations.
Executives of Communauto and car2go got together to denounce recently adopted city bylaws that they say limit their ability to expand to meet demand, and might increase their costs to the point of discouraging people from joining a car-sharing service.
“This Montreal administration has been claiming to be all for car sharing and claims to want to put favourable conditions in place for the development of car sharing in Montreal,” said Benoît Robert, president of Communauto.
Instead, he and car2go Montreal general manager Jérémi Lavoie said, the administration has ignored suggestions from them and other experts about the best way to get the most shared electric vehicles on the road to reduce traffic congestion and pollution.
They want the city to withdraw the Aug. 23 bylaw that will increase from $1,000 to $1,320 per car the annual cost of parking stickers that allow free-floating vehicles to park in spaces reserved for residents in the five boroughs that allow it. (Free-floating vehicles can be picked up in one location and parked elsewhere. Members use an app to find available cars.)
That move will discourage some from joining the services because it will cause an increase in membership fees, they said.
The city also decreed that new parking stickers for free-floating vehicles will only be issued for electric vehicles. The car-sharing services argue this means they will not be able to replace hybrid or gas vehicles if they are damaged or break down, but must purchase more expensive electric vehicles.
Both companies are transitioning to electric vehicles quickly, they say, but they should be free to do so at a pace that helps their services grow.
Lavoie said the city has been so uncommunicative about its plans that his company, which operates in about 30 cities around the world, has had to freeze investment plans in Montreal because of the uncertainty.
The companies say the city has been slow to install charging stations. They had advised the city to install the stations mainly in residential areas, since the cars are usually charged overnight in those areas rather than downtown, Lavoie noted.
The city has only installed 234 charging stations so far, 154 of them downtown.
The companies also expressed outrage at a new rule that would have them pay another $1,320 if a sticker must be replaced because it comes unglued or is discoloured and unreadable, something that happens regularly.
Aref Salem, the city executive committee member responsible for transportation, said the companies have a point, at least as far as the cost of replacing a sticker goes.
“That was just an error in the bylaw,” he said in a phone interview with the Montreal Gazette, adding it will be amended.
But as for only granting permits to electric vehicles from now on, he said that is key to the city’s pledge to get 1,000 electric free-floating car-share vehicles on the road by 2020. The city plans to issue 240 more permits for free-floating vehicles by Jan. 1, but only if they are electric.
He said there will be 550 charging stations in place by the end of June 2017 — plenty for the 550 permits the city plans to issue for electric free-floating vehicles by then. Cities like Amsterdam might have a ratio of three charging stations per electric free-floating car-share vehicle, he said, but that is because private ownership of electric vehicles is high there.
Salem said the companies are making a profit, that downtown parking is expensive, and they can afford the increase in parking sticker fees. He says the outrage by the car-sharing companies about all new permits being for electric vehicles must mean they are not as enthusiastic about electrification as they claim to be.
Robert of Communauto said Mayor Denis Coderre is being dogmatic about the idea of 1,000 electric free-floating vehicles by 2020 without considering the real impact on congestion and the environment.
“Each point-to-point car-share car reduces cars on the road and reduces greenhouse gas emissions, regardless of the type of motor in the vehicle. So electrification is the cherry on the sundae, but it’s not everything.”
Salem said city officials will meet with the car-sharing companies within the next two weeks to discuss their complaints.
Communauto and car2go are asking supporters to use the hashtag #jaimemonVLS on social media to demonstrate their support for car sharing.