By Adam Swift
Ten new electric vehicle charging stations could soon be coming to the city.
Following a public hearing last week, the traffic and parking commission approved four spots on Highland Park, and two each on Crescent Avenue, Cabot Street, and Washington Avenue. The spots will be earmarked for electric vehicles from 7 a.m to 7 p.m., and will be open for use by all vehicles from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.
The city has received grant funding to help pay for the EV charging stations, the operation of which will be administered by Commonwealth Electrical Technologies for the Mass Clean Energy Center.
Emily Granoff said there is the potential in the future for more EV charging
“I think we do have money in the budget for potentially other spots, but it’s just that the timeline won’t necessarily work at this point to do the feasibility,” said Granoff. “So I think that we are going to have to have some discussion and be a little flexible on that. But whatever decision we make here tonight, the project team will either go back and look at more spots if that’s possible; I think it’s likely not, but they’ll come back to us if they determine that it is.”
Granoff said that based on the feedback the city has received regarding the chargers, she was recommending the four spots on Highland, and two each at the other locations. She said allowing only electric vehicles during the daytime hours and all vehicles overnight was part of the balancing act to provide the EV services, but still have on-street parking available for residents who do not have electric vehicles.
Traffic commission members did raise questions about what the charges would be for people using the EV chargers.
Steven Conte of Commonwealth Electrical Technologies said that most municipalities charge a modest fee per kilowatt hour for the charging services.
“I will say that on our current chargers, we initially were offering them free to people who were using them,” said Granoff. “That did help boost usage at the start, and then we got to a point that they were getting more expensive to operate, and now we charge a fee on our other chargers, so I think that is probably what we would do here.”
Down the road, the city could also look at whether it would want to charge fees for electric vehicles that use the spots to park after they are fully charged.