ILLINOIS – More than $7 million will go to the State’s Department of Transportation to maintain electric vehicle chargers.
That money is coming from the Federal Highway administration’s E-V Charger Reliability And Accessibility Program. It will be used to repair, replace or upgrade more than a hundred charging ports throughout the state, specifically 93 Level 2 ports and 34 Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC) ports, according to an IDOT Press Release. The money also supports Gov. JB Pritzker’s goal to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2030.
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“Having reliable, accessible public charging is a really important piece of that goal,” said Elizabeth Irvin. She is the deputy director in IDOT’s Office of Planning and Programming. “Because a lot of people are worried if they buy a car, are they going to be able to charge if they are out and about? Are they making a long distance trip? So, this charging infrastructure is really important for people’s peace of mind and getting those EV’s on the road is really important for reducing emissions, both greenhouse emissions as well as air pollution.”
Pritzker announced, last week, the Illinois Finance Authority will get almost $15-million dollars to build new charging stations as part of the state of Illinois’ Community Charging Program.
“This is just one piece of a really broad and coordinated effort across a lot of state agencies, across local agencies to really work together to build this charging infrastructure and to build out not just the charging infrastructure, but also the EV manufacturing and bring those jobs to Illinois,” said Irvin.
For more information on the $7.1-million award, click here. For more about the E-V Charger Reliability And Accessibility Program, click here.
