How Cities are Deciding Where Electric Vehicle Chargers Should Go
Source: Route Fifty By Daniel C. Vock, Senior Reporter
Places where street parking is the norm and residential driveways are rare face unique challenges when it comes to making sure drivers can plug in their cars.
The New Jersey city of Hoboken, which sits across the Hudson River from New York City, has an ambitious goal: It wants to put electric vehicle charging stations within a five-minute walking distance of every household in the city. Accomplishing that will require city officials to figure out how to best integrate the new hardware into a dense urban environment, where curb space is valuable, driveways are scarce and street-parking is limited.
Cities across the country face similar challenges, as local leaders prepare for a surge in electric vehicles. Their approaches have varied considerably, from installing chargers on city-owned streetlights in Los Angeles to partnering with private charging companies in places like San Antonio and Hoboken. Decisions local governments and industry are making now are likely to affect how the charging landscape looks for years to come.
“We’re here to provide the infrastructure, and then people will feel confident making an informed decision to convert from a gasoline-powered vehicle to an electric vehicle,” said Ryan Sharp, Hoboken’s director of transportation and parking. Sharp noted that shifting to electric vehicles is a major emphasis of the city’s climate plan.
Hoboken already has 1,000 electric vehicles on its streets, and that number is expected to triple by 2025. Unlike more suburban areas, the square-mile city has few garages and driveways where drivers can plug in their cars overnight. That means they need publicly available chargers to entice residents to switch to the cleaner cars.
Likewise, officials in many cities say that the public’s willingness to use and buy electric vehicles could depend on how easy it is to charge those cars and trucks in public.
Hoboken is emphasizing on-street spaces as it adds some 25 new chargers, which would double its existing number of stations, Sharp said. Most of its current stations are tucked away in public garages and parking lots. But the one public charger Hoboken has on a street, a few blocks from city hall, accounts for 40% of the city’s charging sessions. Sharp sees it as a sign that curbside stations will be in demand.