NYC DOT
The city wants to convert seven Upper West Side parking spaces into curbside electric vehicle charging stations, and at last week’s Community Board 7 Transportation Committee meeting, the idea got a decidedly mixed reception. The committee’s chair called it an improper use of public space. Another board member called it a no-brainer. Nothing was voted on, but the clock is ticking for residents who want a say in where the chargers go, or whether they go in at all.
Advertisement
The proposed locations, as read into the record from DOT’s project map, are:- 200 West 106th Street
- 13 West 106th Street
- 102 West 95th Street
- 222 West 83rd Street
- 215 West 76th Street
- 229 West 74th Street
- 2 West 73rd Street
The sites are part of a citywide expansion of DOT’s PlugNYC network that Commissioner Mike Flynn announced on August 4, along with an online portal for public feedback. The plan adds 600 new curbside charging points over the next three years, taking the city from 88 today to nearly 700. The Upper West Side is one of the first neighborhoods in line, alongside Washington Heights and a handful of spots in the other boroughs.
Colleen Chattergoon, DOT’s representative to the board, told the committee the chargers are Level 2 units that get bolted to the sidewalk or curb and hardwired underground through Con Edison, with a lifespan of eight to 15 years. They’re for cars only; e-bikes can’t plug in. And while the program started as a pilot, she said these installations are meant to be permanent. Signs and enforcement would keep drivers from treating a charging spot as an all-day parking space, she said, though when a new committee member asked whether there’d be escalating fees for cars that stay plugged in after they’re full, she said she’d have to find out.
The pitch, in Chattergoon’s words, is that charging an EV is a real challenge in New York City, where many people park on the street and have no access to a home charger. She said DOT chose the sites by weighing sidewalk width and depth, nearby street furniture like bus shelters and Citi Bike docks, tree pits, vaulted sidewalks and the residential-commercial mix of each block. She also said the agency isn’t pushing the board for a resolution, and that it’s open to alternative locations. DOT extended its comment deadline for the district to September 30.
Ken Coughlin, the committee’s co-chair, wasn’t buying it. His objection isn’t to any one address so much as to the concept: once a charger is bolted to the curb, he argued, that stretch of street is locked in for cars, and it becomes that much harder to ever use it for anything else. Chargers belong at gas stations, in parking garages and on private property, he said, adding that EV owners tend to be wealthier drivers to begin with. He also offered a bit of history, noting that the 1920s saw thousands of sidewalk gas pumps around the country before they vanished within a decade in favor of gas stations.
Advertisement
Howard Yaruss zeroed in on the West 73rd Street site, which he said sits in the middle of a two-mile stretch of some of the densest apartment buildings in the country without a single loading zone. Using a parking space for a charger there, he said, “doesn’t make any sense.”Others on the committee thought the fuss was out of proportion to seven parking spaces. Doug Kleinman called the proposal “pretty de minimis” and pointed out that plenty of EV owners on the Upper West Side can’t afford a garage, and that many garages don’t offer charging anyway. Barbara Adler, co-chair of the board’s Parks and Environment Committee, joined from home to say she’d vote in favor tonight or whenever it came up, noting that outside of the chargers at Lincoln Towers, which are reserved for residents who own their spaces, there are very few places in the neighborhood to charge a car.
Several members said they simply weren’t ready to sign off on specific sites they hadn’t visited, and one suggested CB7 hold public sessions on the locations the way it did when Citi Bike first rolled into the neighborhood. Coughlin tried to move a resolution telling DOT the board understands the goal but doesn’t think chargers should take up public curb space. It was seconded, then quickly withdrawn after a colleague suggested that by the same logic the board should ask to remove every Citi Bike dock in the district.
So for now, the seven sites stand as proposed. Comments can be submitted through DOT’s online project map until September 30, and the committee is expected to keep talking about it.
Have a news tip? Send it to us here!
