Fayetteville, Cumberland and school system to beef up electric vehicle plans

We were driving back from the beach the other day on N.C. 87 and passed Tar Heel Middle School — my wife noticed there was an electric vehicle charger out front. We were in my EV at the time, so we tend to notice such things.

I called the school this week and turns out they have two chargers for cars and three for school buses, according to a staff member. The school in Bladen County is a “green school” and though a number of schools carry that designation, you don’t see a whole lot with chargers.

More: Pitts: Fayetteville needs more EV chargers; help may be on the way. Here are 4 things to know.

That’s a shame.

We have all seen signs about why people should not idle their vehicles in front of schools. Schools are actually a great place to put chargers for staff and guests because EVs can “idle” and it won’t affect the kids or anything else. There is no gas engine to idle and no associated fumes.

But I still took seeing a charger at a school as a good sign that EV infrastructure is coming along, although slowly.

EV wave not over

If you ask me whether the city of Fayetteville has sufficient numbers of EV chargers, I will say “no” but add that few cities or towns do. That is why any conscientious EV driver, before a long road trip, will find stations along the way and at the destination using mobile apps that are crowd-sourced and will tell you if a particular station is actually working.

More: Pitts: There were big plans for the parking deck on Hay Street in Fayetteville. What happened?

Politicians, city planners and managers fell behind the EV wave and have yet to catch up and I am not even talking about the politicians hostile to electric vehicles or anything “green.”

If you heard the EV wave is over, don’t believe the hype. EV sales continue to rise albeit at a slower pace than initially forecast.

Communities like Fayetteville and Cumberland County are slowly boosting their EV efforts, in some cases, thanks to federal grant money.

Here are a few.

Cumberland County's new parking deck

Cumberland County’s $33 million parking deck to be built behind the courthouse will include EV chargers and spaces. In addition to courthouse personnel and others, the deck will serve a new Crown Event Center, which will, of course, bring people from all over, many expecting EV spaces as a basic service.

In my view, any new parking deck should include EV spaces and the city missed an opportunity when it completed its Hay Street deck.

More: 'It's awesome': Fayetteville's Crown Event Center moving forward with new design

I mean, you can’t have missed all these Teslas on the road, and Teslas are not even all EVs, not by a long shot.

Having available chargers is an easy way to make a downtown more attractive, and to its credit, the city does offer four in conjunction with the Fayetteville Public Works Commission — three in the Franklin Street deck, and one at the Fayetteville History Museum.

City energy plan to include more chargers

A federal grant is designed to help the city develop a comprehensive plan for energy efficiency and conservation. A separate federal program will provide a position to help make it happen.

Fayetteville officials recently announced it would receive $245,040 from the U.S. Department of Energy, as part of the agency’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program. The Energy Department will also place a fully-funded EECBG Community Energy Fellow in the city as part of the effort, the release states.

What does it mean?

“The intent of the strategy will focus on infrastructure enhancements, including green upgrades to public spaces and investments in electric vehicle infrastructure,” a news release says. “These efforts will position the region as a leader in sustainable energy practices, combining environmental stewardship with economic growth.”

Fayetteville is among more than 2,700 communities in the U.S. to receive some of the $430 million through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in 2021.

“Several communities with strong proposals and projects, including Fayetteville, have also been selected as sites for the Community Energy Fellow program,” the city release said.

The energy fellow will start work in August, a city spokesperson said Monday.

For information on the EECBG Program and to follow progress on the city’s effort, visit the city website and the U.S. Department of Energy's EECBG Program page.

Separately, the city is "actively" looking for more federal grant money to add more electric or low-emission buses in its Fayetteville Area System of Transit fleet by making its case to the Federal Transit Administration’s competitive Low or No Emission Vehicle Program.

Electric school buses

Cumberland County will get two electric school buses as part of its share in a federal effort to roll out 3,400 “clean school buses” across the country, according to a news release from Gov. Roy Cooper. The buses are expected to be delivered by the fall 2025 semester, according to the school system's transportation department. The buses will join two other electric buses funded by a Volkswagen/Duke Energy grant expected to be delivered in the spring semester of 2025.

The funding of $900 million is through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and will impact 530 districts, “across nearly every state, several Tribes, and multiple U.S. territories,” according to a release from the Electrification Coalition, a nonpartisan, nonprofit that promotes EV infrastructure. The state of North Carolina’s share is $19 million; 14 districts in the state will see the new buses, including big award recipients, Lee County (more than $4 million) and Charlotte-Mecklenburg (more than $8 million), the release said.

Opinion Editor Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville, Cumberland and school system to beef up electric vehicle plans