Charging Forward: A Toolkit for Planning and Funding Urban Electric Mobility Infrastructure
Urban E-Mobility Toolkit
The Urban Electric Mobility Toolkit serves as a one-stop resource to help urban communities scope, plan, and identify ways to fund electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, supporting diverse forms of electric mobility including travel by personal vehicle, transit, micromobility (e.g., electric bicycles and scooters), and ride-sharing services.
Urban communities, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), transportation providers, businesses, and property owners and developers can use the toolkit to identify key partners for an electric charging project, take advantage of relevant planning tools, and identify available funding or financing to help make that project a reality. This toolkit is intended for a variety of urban stakeholders, including States, local communities, transportation providers, nonprofits, businesses, and individuals.
Types of Electric Mobility
The toolkit covers infrastructure for different types of electric mobility, whether owned individually or shared in a fleet, including:
- Light-duty passenger vehicles (such as sedans, sport utility vehicles [SUVs], and pickup trucks)
- Micromobility (including electric bikes and scooters)
- Transit and school buses
- Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles
This toolkit generally uses the term “EV” to refer to light-duty electric passenger vehicles, and “electric mobility” to refer to the broader range of electric transportation options.
In This Toolkit
The Urban Electric Mobility Toolkit covers the stages of electric mobility infrastructure development in the following linked sections:
Electric Mobility Basics
Electric Mobility Basics provides a brief overview of types of EVs, the three charging levels for EVs (which correlate to charging speed capacity), and an overview of electric micromobility and electric transit.
Benefits and Implementation Challenges of Urban Mobility Electrification
Benefits and Implementation Challenges of Urban Mobility Electrification introduces the benefits to communities and individuals associated with electric mobility and charging infrastructure, as well as some of the challenges and evolving strategies to be able to realize those benefits.
Partnership Opportunities
Partnership Opportunities discusses key partners and stakeholders for electric mobility infrastructure projects, including regional and local coalitions, planning and transit agencies, utilities, and site hosts.
Electric Mobility Infrastructure Planning for Urban Areas
Electric Mobility Infrastructure Planning for Urban Areas summarizes the different scales of electric mobility infrastructure planning and project delivery, provides a walk-through of the key technical considerations in planning a new installation, including for transit and micromobility, and discusses methods to support an equitable planning process.
Electric Mobility Infrastructure Funding and Financing for Urban Areas
Electric Mobility Infrastructure Funding and Financing for Urban Areas provides information on Federal funding programs and other funding-related resources that may reduce the financial burden of implementing electric mobility infrastructure. At the end of this section, the Urban Electric Mobility Infrastructure Funding Table provides a comprehensive list of Federal funding programs applicable to different types of urban electric mobility charging projects.
Resources for Electric Mobility Infrastructure Planning
Resources for Electric Mobility Infrastructure Planning provides an annotated list of planning support tools and other resources.
Environmental Statutes and Executive Orders
Environmental Statutes and Executive Orders discusses requirements relevant to electric mobility infrastructure planning.
Sidebars throughout the document provide relevant examples and highlight key concepts.
Many of the activities described in this toolkit can—and often do—happen in parallel, so the user can expect to jump between sections as needed. Toolkit users are encouraged to treat this document not as a sequential list of instructions, but as a companion in the process of completing a project.
Disclaimer: The contents of this toolkit do not have the force and effect of law and are not meant to bind the public in any way. This document is intended only to provide information to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency policies. The U.S. Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trademarks or manufacturers' names appear in this report only because they are considered essential to the objective of the document.