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BOSTON - Thursday, July 6, 2023 - Mayor
Michelle Wu today announced two opportunities
to help increase the availability of publicly accessible electric vehicle
(EV) charging stations. Through the release of two Requests for Proposals (RFP), the
City is seeking to evaluate the market for businesses to partner with
Boston to bolster the number of public, curbside charging stations
equitably distributed citywide for individuals without driveways. While the
City continues to build EV charging stations in municipal parking lots, the
demand for public access chargers is much greater than what can be provided
from off-street publicly owned parking lot locations alone. Through the
RFPs, the City will examine how the private market can supplement the
City’s stock with creating accessible public charging as well as
contracting with partners to install and service city-owned chargers.
“With rapidly advancing technology and
subsidies from federal and state sources, electric vehicles can be
affordable for families looking for a cleaner, greener alternative, but we
must develop the public charging infrastructure to ensure accessibility
across all our communities,” said Mayor Michelle Wu. “As we
work to improve multimodal transportation access across walking, biking,
and public transit, we also strive to make the transition to electric
vehicles possible and create jobs building the infrastructure necessary for
our city.”
“We know that to eliminate climate change
and environmental pollution residents, commuters and visitors cannot rely
on personal vehicles, but if they need a car it should be electric,”
said Green New Deal Director Oliver Sellers-Garcia. “As we
implement a Green New Deal for Boston, we are looking for ways to make the
inevitable EV transition work best for our city. We’re focusing on
strategies that address the needs of drivers who can’t charge at home, and
we’re seeking to create a market that can bring more workers into the
business of decarbonization.”
“As we continue to make changes to our
streets to better serve all modes of transportation, we also want to make
it more viable to choose to drive electric by supporting the expansion of
charging infrastructure at the curb and in our municipal lots,” said Jascha
Franklin-Hodge, Chief of Streets. “These investments will create a more
accessible and equitable charging network which will expand the options our
residents have in how they choose to travel.”
Public/Private
Partnership to Deploy Electric Vehicle Charging at Curbside Locations
Through this RFP, the City will examine how
the private market can support in making public charging accessible. The
City is seeking proposals that increase curbside chargers equitably in the
public right-of-way – along city sidewalks – at no cost to the City. If
awarded, the City will provide the curb space for free to the
contractor.
Electric
Vehicle Charging Stations and Related Services
To complement the public-private model, the
City also seeks to expand City-owned EV chargers beyond municipal lots. The
City is looking to contract with a partner to install and service
City-owned charging stations on curb sides in the right-of-way.
Proposals for each request are due by July
26, 2023. The City’s goal is to ensure that every household is within a 10
minute walk of a publicly accessible EV charger by 2030.
To supplement these electric vehicle
charging efforts, the City is taking a number of other steps to increase
access and availability to charging stations. The City’s investment in EV charging
equipment has increased with the Fiscal Year 2024 budget for the Streets
Cabinet including an additional $700,000 in funds for EVs, bringing the total
amount to $1.35 million. The City is also currently working with Eversource
through the Make Ready program to install 16 LV II charging ports and 8
DCFC ports in municipal parking lots. The goal is to have these installed
in 6-12 months.
The City is also installing projects for
curbside charging at 15 sites. Each site will contain a minimum of 4 LV II
charging ports, for a total minimum of 60 LV II charging ports. The goal is
to have these installed and operational within 6-12 months. The City also
applied for CFI funds for $15 million. With a local match of 20 percent, the
nearly $19 million project will install 40 DCFC and 260 LV II charging
ports in municipal parking lots, at expanded GoHub! locations, and near
dense residential, Main Streets, and neighborhood commercial districts.
In May, Mayor Wu
announced Safety Surge, a new street safety program designed to curb speeding,
reduce crashes, and make neighborhoods more comfortable and safer for
walking, biking, and driving. The Safety Surge invests in the installation
of zones of speed humps on eligible neighborhood streets, the redesign of
intersections for safety, and new guidelines for the City’s traffic signals
to slow down traffic on residential streets and reduce conflicts between
drivers, pedestrians, and bike riders. This builds on Mayor Wu’s commitment
to ensure all modes of transportation are safe on Boston’s streets and to
make Boston the best City in the country to raise a family. The plan for
speed hump implementation was first announced last fall with an expansion of the
City’s bike network.
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