Boston is one of the major metropolitan cities in the northeast of the country. It’s home to hundreds of thousands of people, plus visitors and people traveling to work. The city has been making major changes to provide EV charging stations for all of its residents and commuters, but there are still major changes that need to be made. The number of EV charging stations are not being distributed evenly throughout Boston. Most of them are located in the main part of the city and become more sporadic as it stretches into the Greater Boston area. Some neighborhoods, like Hyde Park and West Roxbury, are practically charging deserts due to the lack of EV charging stations meanwhile Downtown Boston and Fenway have many public EV charging stations.

One of Boston’s solutions is installing charging stations in city owned parking lots in the underserved neighborhoods. They are also requiring developers to designate 25% of parking spots to EV charging. There has not been any changes or push made for multi-family dwellings, like apartment complexes or condominiums, to install EV charging stations at their facilities. When EV charging stations are installed, not many of them are fast chargers, which gives some drivers range anxiety. Level 1 or 2 EV chargers can take hours to charge depending on the vehicle and a lot of EV charging parking spots have time limits on how long you can sit and park. It can make it extra hard for drivers to reach a full charge. In cities like Boston, not everybody can have an at home charging station due to either renting or not having off-street parking.

Cities across the country are working tirelessly to find a balance between providing EV charging station access to drivers without taking away too much parking away from drivers that use gas engines. In Hoboken, NJ, the city has found ways to provide EV drivers without off-street parking a way to charge their vehicles. Meanwhile in Philadelphia, local residents managed to put a stop to designated parking spaces for EVs.

Click here to read the full article, originally published February 22, 2023, by WBUR.