Posts Tagged ‘New York’

by Stacy Shackford for the Ithaca Journal, December 29, 2009

Car may be king in Tompkins County, but maybe not for much longer.

Transportation planners spent much of 2009 trying to convince commuters to abandon their cars in favor of buses, bicycles and their own two feet, and 2010 promises more of the same.

“Rideshare” was a popular buzzword, with new car and vanpool services launched, and three new vehicles added to the Ithaca Car Share fleet.

Tompkins County adopted its own Green Fleet policy, and will be purchasing three hybrid vehicles in the new year. It also participated in a biofuels consortium, allowing municipalities and businesses to purchase alternative fuels.

For those who can’t bear to give up their ride, Andree Petroleum made B5 diodiesel available at the pump and Ithaca’s Pritchard Automotive started selling the area’s first electric vehicle, the Wheego Whip.

Ithaca-Tompkins Regional Airport attracted national attention when it became the first airport to start developing a green master plan, a 20-year development framework with environmental sustainability at its core.

Air passenger traffic reached great heights in 2009. The airport’s rise in boardings — up 20 percent over 2008 — was often the one bright spot in otherwise bleak county economic updates, and end-of-year passenger totals are expected to pass 100,000 for the first time in a decade.

Not only did the airport manage to maintain routes threatened by a withdrawal by operator Continental, it also gained a new US Airways service to Reagan International Airport in Washington, D.C., which is hoped to launch within the next few months.

It was also an exciting year for Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit, which opened a new café and passenger waiting area at the busy Green Street transportation hub and ordered nearly a dozen new buses using $3.37 million in federal stimulus funding.

The start of 2010 will be just as bustling, with extensive route changes and a new fare system set to come into effect Jan. 17.

On the roads, the county highway department was kept busy with the federally funded Warren Road reconstruction.

The Town of Caroline saw some big projects too, with major road rehabilitation of White Church Road and Old 76 Road and bridge replacement at West Creek Road.

County highway manager William Sczesny said 2010 will probably see more of the same, although he has yet to finalize a schedule of work. Warren Road will remain at the top of the list, possibly followed by Hanshaw Road and the Forest Home bridge replacement. Other bridge projects that might be tackled include Game Farm Road and Newfield Depot Road.

by Ted Fioraliso, WENY-TV, November 13, 2009

ITHACA — It’s been five months since a popular Southern Tier car dealership lost its franchise as part of Chrysler’s bankruptcy re-organization.
     But now, Pritchard Automotive in Ithaca is selling a new car it hopes will take the company into the next decade.
     Pritchard just got its first Wheego Whip in the other day.  The owners think the fully electric vehicle will take off in the Ithaca area.
     “We’ve been driving it all over town,” said owner Dan Pritchard.
     Pritchard showed off the Whip at the NET Impact Conference at Cornell University Friday.
     This electric car is just shy of 10-feet long, holds two people, and looks like a conventional car inside.
     But it sounds much different.  Actually, it doesn’t make much noise at all.
     “It’s pretty quiet.  Only noise you hear is that brake pump,” explained Pritchard.
     Pritchard took us on a text drive around the Cornell campus.  It tops out at only 25 miles per hour, but you don’t feel like you’re going that slowly.  That’s why Pritchard thinks it’s a perfect city car.
     “A car like this to run errands just makes a lot of sense.  You plug it in, you drive to get your paper, go to Wegmans, go to the library, bring your kid to school, come home, plug it in, and you’re ready to go again,” said Pritchard.
     That’s right — the only power the whip needs is comes from an outlet in your own home.
     It’s a completely new direction for Pritchard’s 94-year-old family business.  After Chrysler dropped them in June, the company’s stayed afloat selling used cars and with its body shop.  But Pritchard is confident going into the future with electric.
     “You either change or go away.  But it’s exciting. It’s really reinvigorated the whole dealership,” he said.
     The Wheego Whip costs $20,000.  Next year, the company is expected to release a full-speed version.

(See video on WENY-TV website).

By Stacey Shackford, Ithaca Journal, Nov. 10, 2009

ITHACA — The Pritchard family has always been proud of its past. As owners of Ithaca’s oldest car dealership, they’ve been selling cars to Ithaca motorists for five generations.

Now they are embracing the future, and they believe the future is electric.

William T. Pritchard Inc., of 304 S. Cayuga St., is the first dealership in the state to stock the Whip, an all-electric low-speed vehicle manufactured by a California company called Wheego.

The Pritchards took stock of the two-seat compact car last week, and Dan Pritchard has been using it to whip around town on errands and show off its smooth, noiseless ride.

Interest in the little red novelty has been high, he said, although no orders have been placed yet.

With a speed limit of 25 mph and a power charge that will last for about 40 miles, the vehicle is meant to be used solely for short distances, driven on roads with posted speed limits of 35 mph or less.

But its 40 horsepower motor is more powerful than many electric vehicles on the market, and a bit bigger than their traditional golf-cart sized frames. At 118.5 inches long, 63 inches wide and 63 inches high, it is surprisingly roomy inside, with space for a large suitcase in the back.

There is a socket where you would expect the gas tank to be, and a cord that plugs into any household 120-volt electrical socket. It takes about eight hours to fully charge the 12 sealed lead-acid 8-volt batteries, and Pritchard said Wheego the company encourages “opportunity charging,” frequent short-term charges whenever you find yourself parked near a plug.

The car is completely uncluttered beneath the hood, and dashboard controls are simple, with just three displays — a power charge indicator, a speed indicator, and an “ecometer” comprising five LED lights that let you know when you are driving most efficiently.

The limit on speed does force the driver to rethink where they are going and how they will get there, but Pritchard pointed out that it is possible for a West Hill resident to use the car to get to work at Cornell University, do the weekly shopping at Wegmans and visit the Farmer’s Market on weekends. Pritchard said he is in talks with Cornell, Ithaca College and the City of Ithaca about the possibility of incorporating it into their fleets.

He said the low speeds mean low wear and tear on brakes and other parts, and subsequently low maintenance costs. The only fluids to be filled are for the brakes and windshield wipers, so there are no oil change or gas bills to be paid.

He estimates the cost to power the car to be 3 cents per mile. At current gas prices of nearly $3 per gallon, even a relatively efficient gasoline car that gets 30 miles per gallon costs 10 cents per mile.

A full-speed Wheego Whip is expected next summer, with lithium ion batteries that will give it the ability to travel at 60 mph and get 80 miles on a single charge. The company will be offering a trade-up program for those wishing to swap models and willing to pay a price differential to do so.

One of the incentives to buy now, however, is a $7,500 federal tax credit, only guaranteed until the end of the year, which would bring the price of the low-speed vehicle to $12,495.

“If you are really into taking care of the environment and saving some money, it’s still not a bad deal,” he said.

Pritchard said he embraced the product after seeking ways to supplement stock when Chrysler announced in May that it would be withdrawing the dealership from its franchise as part of bankruptcy restructuring. Despite the pull-out, he said business is going well, and the change actually gave his used car sales a boost as people realized they stocked and serviced more than just Chrysler products.

“We are really excited about this,” Pritchard added. “The whole future seems to be going this way.”