Check Out USDOT’s Urban County EV Tool Kit

The free technical resource aims to help larger communities take full advantage of Federal funding for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and other forms of electric transportation. 

The U.S. Department of Transportation, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation (Joint Office), recently released a free technical resource to help larger communities take full advantage of Federal funding for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and other forms of electric transportation. It follows the popular Rural EV toolkit released last year and updated earlier this summer.

The new guide is called Charging Forward: A Toolkit for Planning and Funding Urban Electric Mobility Infrastructure, which provides a comprehensive resource for communities, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), transportation providers, businesses, and property owners and developers by including information on how to scope, plan, and identify ways to best leverage billions of dollars in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The toolkit builds on the efforts of the Joint Office to provide states and communities across America with information and assistance to accelerate an electrified transportation system that is convenient, affordable, reliable, and equitable. The toolkit also includes guidance to help urban areas implement other forms of electric transportation, such as public transit, electric bikes and scooters, and ride-share services.

The rapid growth in electric forms of transportation represents a fundamental shift that will bring substantial benefits to all parts of the country, including good-paying manufacturing and installation jobs. The federal funding for EV chargers is part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda that is growing the American economy from the bottom up and middle out – from rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, to creating a manufacturing and innovation boom and building a clean-energy economy that will combat climate change and make our communities more resilient.

The toolkit builds on recent progress towards the expansion of EV infrastructure, including the recently published minimum standards for federally funded EV infrastructure. Earlier this year, the federal government released the first-ever blueprint to decarbonize the nation’s transportation sector and cut all transportation-related greenhouse emissions by 2050 – an interagency effort between DOT, the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Department will be hosting a webinar to present the Urban Electric Mobility Toolkit in more detail. More details will be made available soon on the Joint Office’s website at driveelectric.gov.

In May, DOT released an updated Rural EV Toolkit that incorporated feedback from rural communities and stakeholders on the toolkit’s first iteration. The updated toolkit includes more information on EV charging programs and information on related topics like public transit and school bus electrification. The revised toolkit and other rural EV resources are available at www.transportation.gov/rural/ev.

The urban toolkit is available here: https://www.transportation.gov/urban-e-mobility-toolkit and is included in the DOT Navigator – a one stop shop for accessing the range of federal transportation technical assistance resources.

Read more from USDOT. 

MACo Summer Conference

At the 2023 MACo Summer Conference general session, “More Than Bricks & Mortar (Part 2): Infrastructure & Climate Change” panelists will discuss near- and long-term challenges, including: how sea level rise will shape development, the impacts of hotter summers on public health, and the challenges and opportunities around full electrification. 

The 2023 MACo Summer Conference will be held at the Roland Powell Convention Center in Ocean City, MD, on August 16-19. This year’s theme is “Where the Rubber Meets the Road.” More information can be found on our conference website.

Learn more about MACo’s Summer Conference: