A new addition to the streetside infrastructure the last couple of years has been charging stations for electric-powered vehicles. If you watched the Super Bowl this year, you saw electric cars being heavily promoted, as well as sports gambling. I am immune to these pitches, as I have always been too chicken and too cheap to drive, and too cheap to blow my meager pay checks on handing my money over to Draft Kings or whoever. (Ask the instructors at the driving school where I almost wrecked Dodge Darts in 1975. Or my cousin Jimmy, where I almost got us killed in his Gremlin. I am not cut out to move tons of metal.) I bicycled all over Brooklyn and Queens from the 1970s to the 1990s well before it became a political act to do so.
These charging stations are on Red Cross Place and Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn Heights and are the result of a a partnership between NYC DOT, Con Edison and FLO, one of the largest electric vehicle charging networks in North America. It takes 4 to 8 hours to fully charge many models at $1.00 to $2.50 per charging hour. As for parking, like it says on Department of Transportation 1980s signs, don’t even THINK of parking at the chargers, otherwise you’ll get a ticket.
Electric cars are fine, but I predict they won’t compete with gasoline till they reduce the charging time. You can fill ‘er up in a matter of minutes but 4 to 8 hours? Jayzus. Unless you do it overnight.
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