West Coast mayors will form consortium to build highway for electric vehicles

The mayors of five U.S. West Coast cities met in Portland for a two-day summit last week to deliver ideas to reduce carbon emissions on a regional level. The meeting was held as the world leaders met in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (CPO21) in Paris to discuss carbon reductions on a global scale.

The mayors of the cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Eugene signed the declaration about joint plans to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 within their cities.

The declaration follows the recent announcement from the Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) Alliance states including California, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Vermont, to make all new cars to be emission free by 2050.

The signed declaration would involve the increase of renewable energy source use, and conversions of city vehicles to electric and biodiesel powered, according to Green Car Reports.

It would also involve more investment of federal funds toward public transit expansion. The announcement is aiming to build thriving, livable, and low carbon economies along the West Coast.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that the five cities have made the initial step to establish an electric vehicle consortium to increase the purchasing power for buying electric vehicles, from sedan to medium and heavy duty trucks.

Los Angeles has been developing electric vehicles for public transports. The city has been testing electric buses, and electric sedans BMW i3 and Tesla Model S for LAPD cars.

Garcetti has committed to adding 160 battery for electric vehicles in the city and to reach the goal of 1000 publicly available EV chargers by 2017, according to My News LA.

The West Coast Alliance of Mayors has committed to creating a West Coast electric vehicle highway, according to SeattlePi.

The highway will make electric vehicles chargers available to the public to increase the use of electric vehicles in the city. The electric vehicle highway is planned to pass through Olympia, Washington DC.

In addition to the EV consortium issue, the mayors discussed reducing water and energy use in city buildings, and increasing solar and renewable energy use in powering city operations.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said in the summit that the city will be sending zero waste to landfills and reaching the goal of 50 percent of non-auto transport trips. The city seeks to get 100 percent of its energy from renewables.

The five mayors involved in the first West Coast Alliance summit will take the issues from the meeting to the U.S. Conference of Mayors in January 2016.