Electrified Curbs: can on-street charging support multimodal transportation?
By Jen Roberton, AICP, Senior Planner, Sustainability & Resiliency Lead
Will electric vehicles be a boon for efforts to fight the climate crisis, or will they lead us to miss the mark by failing to shift people away from private vehicle use? Much commentary on this subject can make it seem like you must pick. Many cities also seem to have conflicting goals of rapidly reducing vehicle dependency while also investing millions of dollars in charging infrastructure for cars. The messaging is confusing: meeting our climate goals in cities means telling people “do not drive, but if you do drive use a zero-emission vehicle”. In truth, both driving electric and not driving at all requires investment and re-thinking curb management—and planning for one doesn’t necessarily need to come at the expense of the other.
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report emphasizes that electric vehicles are a key lever to deeply reduce greenhouse gas emissions from mobility. Although EVs do emit some particulate matter from tire wear and brake dust, they emit no tailpipe emissions. Batteries are also significantly more energy efficient than combustion engines.
Transitioning to an electric fleet will require changes to our fueling infrastructure. Electric vehicles need more time to refill (anywhere from 30 minutes to 4-6 hours depending on the vehicle and capacity of the charger). Planning for charging starts with bringing energy to where cars are stored: workplaces, home garages, and on the street. Being able to charge anywhere, anytime is critical to EV adoption.
Dense cities where cars are parked on-street, such as Los Angeles, Paris, New York and London, have installed vehicle charging along the curb. Los Angeles has mounted charging plugs into streetlight infrastructure, using existing circuitry and taking advantage of cost and space efficiencies. European cities have utilized the fact that electric vehicle drivers often bring their own charging cord with them by installing outlets into existing streetlights and other street furniture.
However, the tension between space for cars and space for literally anything else is acute at the curb. On-street passenger vehicle space is (mistakenly) considered personal property by many car owners. If we were to flip a switch today and shift all vehicles from gasoline to electric, traffic congestion and fatalities, as well as the economic inefficiencies endemic to car culture, would continue.
Buses and bikes are already competing with cars and trucks for curb space. Why are we locking in space exclusively for vehicles when we have numerous better options available?
We don’t have to choose between electric vehicle charging or other uses. Electrifying our curbs can be beneficial to reducing car dependency and reclaiming space for buses, bikes and walking—if cities plan for it intentionally.
Electrification has potential efficiencies across modes. Electric bicycles have proliferated in use, serving those who want the extra boost getting through traffic and over hills as well as helping food delivery workers rack up more orders per shift. Many transit authorities and school bus operators have ambitious all-electric bus fleet goals in the next few decades, including CTA in Chicago, King County Metro in Seattle and New York City’s school bus fleet.
The transition to electric buses and trucks will lessen public health concerns due to asthma and other respiratory issues by emitting significantly less particulate matter, a significant benefit for communities historically overburdened by diesel truck and bus emissions. Micromobility, like electric bikes and scooters, also adds entirely new options to better connect mass transit to the last mile to a home or workplace. Designing our streets and bringing infrastructure to the curb should reflect environmental justice priorities in their deployment.
Electrification in curb management policy should follow a hierarchy that deprioritizes unnecessary vehicular trips. If electrical capacity is increased at the curb for a transportation use, it should be for the most equitable and efficient reasons. We can use the movement to electrify passenger vehicles to electrify our public right-of-way for multimodal use.
Multi-modal infrastructure for electrified transportation already exists along our curbs. In New York, all-electric transit buses are supported by on-route pantograph charging located along the curb at East 41st Street (as well as off-street at the bus bays at Williamsburg Bridge Plaza and off the West Side Highway). IndyGO in Indianapolis has installed inductive charging using an underground pad located on bus stops along the Red Line.
Shared micromobility has electrified from Melbourne to Dubai. Some shared bike and scooter providers use a battery swap system to keep their system fully charged, while other providers integrate charging into their docking infrastructure. Divvy in Chicago recently installed their first five on-street shared ebike charging stations. Companies like ‘KUHMUTE’ offer universal micromobility charging, providing hubs for bikes, scooters, mopeds, hoverboards and wheelchairs.
Expanding mobility options in our communities must include people with disabilities. While there are limited options to retrofit electric vehicles for accessibility, there is no ‘off-the-shelf’ widely available wheelchair accessible electric passenger vehicle. Manufacturers must be compelled to provide accessibility features in their electric vehicles, such as induction loops, hand controls and wheelchair lifts.
There has been greater advancement in accessible sustainable transportation. Bird and Lime scooters offer adaptive vehicles. Electric transit buses and school buses offer accessibility features including wheelchair lifts and dedicated space for wheelchair uses.
Electrified transportation must be built for everyone in our communities, requiring direct policy intervention from government. On-street electrified infrastructure must be accessible for people with disabilities and intentionally installed to provide options for underserved communities.
We’ve seen local authorities repurpose transportation infrastructure to better serve people over vehicles. Recently, parklets expanded dramatically in cities globally in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought all public life outdoors. Many business owners outfitted their new on-street dining spaces with makeshift electrical infrastructure to provide heating, cooling, and lighting. Plugs integrated at the curb would provide a safe option for the electrical needs of parklets or allow food trucks to forego using noisy diesel generators for auxiliary power cooking or refrigeration needs.
Electrified curbs are already here. Without intervention, they will remain a patchwork of infrastructure, missing the opportunity to shift away from single occupancy vehicles and towards accessible, equitable and efficient transportation. We need curb management in cities that incorporates electric curbside infrastructure into our broader mobility goals. Doing so can expand opportunities for electric bikes, buses, scooters and wheelchairs, providing clean, efficient mobility to those who historically have had the least options.