City gets grant for electric car charging stations
COHOES, N.Y. >> City officials are excited to soon be able to offer electric car charging stations throughout the Spindle City.
Mayor Shawn Morse said that the city recently received two rebate grants from state Department of Environmental Conservation in order to install electric vehicle charging stations. Morse said one rebate was valued at $16,000 and will go towards installing a charging station in the Van Schaick Island pond parking lot and $30,000 for Remsen Street near the Cohoes Music Hall.
“Those locations aren’t 100 percent but that’s where we are looking at because that is near where we are redoing all of the sidewalks,” explained Morse.
Morse said he wanted the city to apply for this grant since he noticed that more people are starting to go greener when it comes to the environment.
“As the times change, there’s a lot of millennials and people going towards the greener, less carbon footprint on the world, so now more people are driving electric cars,” said Morse. “So we wanted to make that when they came to our city that we have the resources available for them to park and charge their cars while they visit our downtown and other parts of our community. It’s just the right thing to do as part of our global plan in Cohoes to move in the 21st century and have all the amenities that people need to find Cohoes a great place to live and visit.”
Morse said he thought these charging stations would be important for the city to offer to its residents and visitors.
“I think Cohoes is changing and I think more electric cars are being sold recently and we need to make sure that we’re capable of having the resources that people need when they visit our city,” said Morse. “It wouldn’t be very smart on our end to have people say that they can’t come to Cohoes because there is nowhere for them to charge their car, we want people to visit our city and see the rich history that we have and all of the incredible strides that we’ve made.”
Morse said he expects the charging stations to be installed in the city sometime this summer.