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By Will Mbah
Candidate for Somerville City Councilor at Large

As an environmental scientist, I have been following closely the city’s actions to support the transition to electric vehicles. I and my colleagues on the City Council took the first steps in 2018, when we adopted the Climate Forward Plan. In 2019, we authorized the Office of Sustainability and Environment to study and fix a strategy for installing EV Charging Stations around the city. And in 2020 the consultant’s report on siting Public Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment was received. It has guided subsequent city actions with the goal of reducing to Net Zero our vehicle carbon emissions by 2050.

Today, the city is re-launching the Climate Forward Task Force to carry out a five-year review and revision of the Climate Forward Plan and it has just awarded a new consultant contract for an updated Charging Station siting study. It is the right moment to check back on our progress to date and clarify the steps that lie ahead.

The city plays four roles in regulating, assisting and encouraging the transition from gas-powered to electric vehicles.

First, the city must insure that EV Charging stations can be sited in an orderly way by zoning and street/curb use regulations.

Second, the city must gradually replace the gas-powered vehicles in its fleets of police cars, DPW repair trucks, fire engines, etc., by careful capital planning, budgeting, and procurement.

Third, in its contracting, the city should be encouraging its vendors of transportation services to send electric school buses, livery and delivery vans for city jobs.

Fourth, the city helps residents and businesses to learn about and apply for the tax benefits and grants that the utility company, state and federal programs provide to help cover the costs of electric, hybrid or hydrogen-fueled vehicles and charging stations.

What have we already done?

In 2021 the City Council and Planning Board amended the Zoning Ordinance to define the rules that permit the installation of EV charging equipment:

• Low-voltage charging stations are permitted as accessory equipment in yards, garages or driveways of private residences and businesses.
• Higher-voltage units are permitted as auto-related uses, to be located in commercial zones on curbs or public spaces, or in parking garages and lots.

Applying the zoning, Inspectional Services now routinely grants construction permits to install EV charging equipment at business premises and the Planning Board and ZBA approve new large-scale projects with EV charging stations in their basement garages for use by their tenants.

The city has been installing Public Charging Stations on streets and in city-owned parking areas, working with the company Verdek with Charge Point as the software system manager. So far it has placed 12 stations each with two plugs on easily accessible sites at public facilities like the Ice Rink, Union Square and the city building lots on Highland Avenue. A state grant of $14,500 was received to contribute to the cost of the first two stations.

The important test of success must be whether city residents and businesses are following the city’s lead and making the transition to EV.

Today the website maps for drivers to locate charging stations show a total of 65 Level 2 stations and 11 Level 3 (fast-charge) stations around Somerville. These numbers include many of the stations that private owners and businesses have installed for their own fleets and customers’ use.

How many electric vehicles are there in the city today? According to the state Department of Environmental Protection database, in September 2023 a total of 439 electric and hybrid vehicles have been bought and registered by Somerville residents and businesses. This covers all the purchasers since 2014, who have claimed the tax-deduction.

Comparing this current number of 439 EV with the consultant’s estimate of 185 in 2019, the rate of purchase per year appears to be gradually accelerating. However, in Somerville there are over 46,000 registered vehicles, so the EV percentage is still tiny.

Some other evidence of growing EV use

As would be expected, the electric utility Eversource is leading the way for businesses to transition to electric vehicles. In 2018, the company submitted to the state utility board its plans for reducing carbon emissions, pledging (i) to install 400 EV charging stations on highways around New England and (ii) to replace all of the 5,500 trucks, cars and vans in its New England fleet with EV by 2030. Eversource has reported in September 2023, that it has so far changed over 26% of its fleet.

Here in Somerville, at the Eversource regional facility in Brickbottom, the company installed EV charging stations in July 2019. Today, Brickbottom neighbors every morning watch the repair trucks, vans and sedans getting charged before their emergency and repair dispatch. Just up the street at the Herb Chambers facility on McGrath Highway and Linwood, five more charging stations, installed in September 2021, are regularly in use.

Next steps

The City Council Committee on Open Space and Environment has been discussing practical issues that are likely to arise as increased numbers of residents and employees will compete for time and space at the charging stations.

Should there be a parking fee or penalty to discipline people, who keep their cars in the spaces beyond the time they need to charge up? Some people seem to be using the EV stations as resident parking spots.

Should the city have some arrangement of ownership or fee-sharing to get revenue from the charging station network? Is the city infrastructure system prepared to handle the volume of electric power that will need to flow as numbers of EV users grow? How will curbside EV charging impact the other bicycle, open space and pedestrian uses of curb space on shared streets?

I will be looking for answers to these questions in the new study that is underway.

If you want to learn more or support my campaign, please visit my website at willmbah.com.