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Evansville awarded $20 million EPA grant to expand clean-transportation services
Summary
The Evansville Climate Collaborative announced a $20,000,000 U.S. EPA Community Change Grant to fund a three-year clean-transportation package that will expand micro-transit vans, add EV chargers and e-bikes, build sidewalks and fund public education beginning in March.
Unidentified Speaker 2 announced that Evansville has been awarded a $20,000,000 Community Change Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights to fund a three-year clean-transportation initiative.
The project, called “Moving Evansville Toward a Healthier Future,” was presented as a collaborative effort involving the city of Evansville, the Evansville Climate Collaborative, the Department of Transportation and Services, the Evansville Metropolitan Planning Organization, Tri State Creation Care, the Wellborn Baptist Foundation and the Evansville Trails Coalition. Unidentified Speaker 2 said the award came from a competitive national pool of applications and requires no local match.
Planned investments described by staff include expanding the METS micro-transit fleet from a three-vehicle pilot to 16 hybrid or electric, ADA-accessible vans; installing 62 publicly accessible electric-vehicle charging stations; deploying 100 electric bikes for public bike-share; and making about four miles of sidewalk improvements to improve accessibility for walking, biking and assisted modes. Unidentified Speaker 2 said these activities and an education campaign are scheduled to begin in March and that the overall grant term is three years.
Staff also said the METS administration building and the city bus terminal will receive solar installations to help power charging infrastructure, and that utility coordination is underway to confirm grid capacity for the added load. Unidentified Speaker 4 noted the need to ensure the grid can handle the new charging demand as the project moves forward.
The board did not take a formal vote on accepting the grant during this meeting; the announcement was delivered as part of the staff report. Project partners and staff will provide more details and a timeline as implementation plans and additional grant applications (including a potential future CFI charging/fueling infrastructure application) are developed.
Next steps: staff indicated they will share more detailed plans with partners and the board as they finalize project components and schedules, and that related materials will be posted on the ECC website at evansvilleclimate.com and through the city site evansvillegov.org.
