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Boston wants to go green. Do we need more electric car charging stations?

The city has two open bids for curbside EV charging stations.

An electric vehicle at a charging station in Assembly Square. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff

July 14, 2023

2 minutes to read

Boston officials are accepting proposals from developers to build more electric vehicle charging stations across the city.

The goal is to get Boston to be a more energy-efficient city and allow more people to drive electric cars. Without easy access to charging stations, drivers are less likely to make the switch.

There are currently two open bids. First, for companies willing to install privately owned curbside chargers, and another for a vendor to build and maintain city-owned chargers. The city’s aim is to have chargers available in Brighton, Allston, Hyde Park, Dorchester, and Roxbury within a year.

This is part of Mayor Michelle Wu’s larger plan to make Boston a green city. Earlier this week, the mayor unveiled new plans to make all of Boston’s transportation more climate-friendly.

“If we’re serious about delivering a Green New Deal for cities, we must tackle the biggest contributors to the problem head-on,” she said at the Boston Transport Summit, adding that about a third of greenhouse gas emissions within the city come from transportation.

Currently, there are around 180 charging locations mostly offering Level 2 chargers, but the vast majority of those are located in Central Boston, Seaport, Fenway, and Beacon Hill.

“We have so many people who don’t have off-street parking,” Oliver Sellers-Garcia, Boston’s Green New Deal director told WBUR. “We want to see if we are able to integrate this into the curbside street-scape and meet some of the charging demand in places that people are parking their cars on the street.”

We’re looking for partners to help us get EV charging onto curbs around our City—starting this year. To apply, visit: https://t.co/mSt0IWyCpo @BostonBTD @jfh pic.twitter.com/Kt7vrXkVDQ
— Mayor Michelle Wu 吳弭 (@MayorWu) July 6, 2023

Do you think Boston needs more electric vehicle charging stations?

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