NEVs for local travel to and from hillside homes
The Topolino is FIAT’s all-electric urban micro-car
By Steve Price
So many communities in California, including El Cerrito, have hilly neighborhoods that generate traffic into the flatlands. Almost all cities in Contra Costa County have hilly residential areas. According to the U.S. 2020 Census data, almost half El Cerrito’s population lives in the hillier parts of town. To achieve El Cerrito’s climate goals, we may be able to get many more people in the flats to walk more and ride bicycles, but those living in the hills will likely still be the source of continuing traffic of full-sized cars throughout the city.
We can't expect many folks living in the hills to bicycle down from the top of the hills, run some errands, and then bicycle back up, but they could drive small neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) down and back up without threatening the safety of other street users. NEVs are golf-cart-sized vehicles or smaller, which are charged at a wall socket, travel up to 25 mph (the posted speed limit for all streets in El Cerrito except San Pablo Avenue), and are intended for local trips rather than long-distance travel on freeways. NEVs weigh about 1,000 pounds — about a quarter or a fifth of a full-sized car — and they are narrower, so less likely to door a bicycle rider.
In some of the census tracts in the El Cerrito hills, a third to almost half of the population is 60 years old and older. NEVs first started out marketed to seniors, many of whom don’t feel safe on a two-wheel bicycle. NEVs have the potential to provide a low-carbon, small footprint vehicle that doesn’t take much room to park. This is a potentially transformative transportation option for hill-dwellers to get around the inner East Bay.
