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Electric vehicle drivers will need to pay for charging their vehicles at the Lakewood and Lawson civic centres as of Oct. 30.
Motorists can use the ChargePoint app, RFID card, or directly with credit cards or through a digital wallet, said the City of Saskatoon in a press release.
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Charging fees will be applied every day, 24 hours a day, including weekends, evenings, statutory and other holidays.
Electric vehicles can be charged for a maximum of three hours at the stations.
Motorists should check onsite signage for more information.
At its August 27 meeting, city council resolved that electric vehicle charging stations at the Lakewood and Lawson Civic Centres would begin charging user fees.
650 CKOM had earlier reported that the options presented to city council were discontinuing the stations, keeping the price free, or raising rates to $2, $3, or $5.35/hour.
Shutting the stations down was the only choice that would have achieved a zero per cent increase to property taxes, but selecting it would have contradicted Saskatoon’s Low Emissions Community Plan.
Administration anticipated that charging either $2 or $3/hour could keep subsidies down to $6,000 to $7,000 at the lowest end. In comparison, charging $5.35 means the impact on the mill rate will be as low as $4,000.
During that meeting, council settled on an hourly rate of $5.35.
At $5.35/hour, Saskatoon’s city-run chargers will cost more to use than those in Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto and Vancouver.
The city estimated there would be about 44 unique users a month.
When the stations were first installed in May 2023, there was no cost for users to charge their electric vehicles as part of a two-year pilot project.
During this period, the city studied factors including the usage patterns, electricity consumption, impact on peak demand in buildings, repair and maintenance requirements, to “better understand the implications of adding such infrastructure to other public-facing civic services,” said the city in a statement.
For more information about electric vehicles, visit the City of Saskatoon’s website.
— with files from Marija Robinson
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