Update June 24th 2011 Electric car parking

http://www.staradvertiser.com/columnists/20110624_Electric_cars_may_park_without_fees_at_public_lots.html

QUESTION: Regarding your May 12 column on electric cars (is.gd/kokualine05122010), why are electric cars refused free parking at the city's Blaisdell Center parking lot?

Act 290 requires free parking in any state or county parking facility. However, the Blaisdell's attendant charged us $5 to park when we attended the Home, Garden & Remodeling Show. We explained that we believed the law required electric vehicles to get free parking, but the attendant vehemently demanded the $5 fee. She said she'd had the "same problem" the day before with another electric vehicle owner and that her supervisor had "clarified" that the law does not apply to that parking lot. What is going on? Also, where exactly in the Hawaii Revised Statutes is the law that covers free parking for electric cars?

ANSWER: You should have been allowed to park for free, said Louise Kim McCoy, press secretary for Mayor Peter Carlisle. "The city is aware of Act 290, but because the parking lot at the Blaisdell Center is operated by a concession, there may have been some confusion, which has since been clarified," she said.

Owners of electric vehicles that have the proper electric vehicle license plate, who attended the Home, Garden & Remodeling Show and who can demonstrate they were charged for parking, will be reimbursed, Kim McCoy said.

Act 290 became Sections 291-71 and 291-72 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes.

That law says private lots will also have to provide spaces for electric vehicles, albeit not necessarily free parking: "All public, private, and government parking facilities that are available for use by the general public and have at least one hundred parking spaces shall designate one per cent of parking spaces exclusively for electric vehicles by December 31, 2011. … When the number of registered electric vehicles in the State reaches five thousand, the spaces designated for electric vehicles shall increase to two per cent of parking spaces. The number of spaces designated for electric vehicles shall continue to increase by one per cent for each additional five thousand electric vehicles registered in the State until the percentage reaches ten per cent of parking spaces."

Beginning Jan. 1, those parking a nonelectric vehicle in a space designated for electric vehicles will receive a warning. Beginning July 1, 2013, doing so will be deemed a traffic infraction punishable by a fine of $50 to $100.