Sponsored Content By Lane County
Lane County Fleet Services is performing groundbreaking work — literally — to reduce carbon emissions within Lane County, in alignment with the county’s Internal Climate Action Plan. To support further integration of electric vehicles (EVs) into its fleet, Fleet Services has set its sights on developing robust charging infrastructure via a five-year EV infrastructure development project.
One of Fleet’s recent accomplishments is the installation of new ChargePoint charging stations at the Lane County Public Works campus, increasing its charging capability from four ports to seven. In the next five years, Fleet Services will be installing EV charging stations at county facilities spread across the Eugene metropolitan area, starting with the Lane Events Center’s Wheeler Pavilion later this spring. After completing the installation at Wheeler Pavilion, Fleet will be moving forward with its intent to install a public-facing dual-port charging station at Mt. Pisgah’s Howard Buford Recreation Area, made possible through Emerald People’s Utility District’s awarded 2020 Green Grant.
The continued infrastructure growth will allow the county’s Fleet operations to expand on the vehicle front as well. The timing and alignment of our level 2 charging capacities with the growing EV segment on all market fronts are making for a nice fit to future County intentions on emission reductions. Fleet has achieved some early success by including three passenger class cars in the last two fiscal years, two in the Fleet pool and one used in Waste Management administrative operations.
More available locations will allow us to accelerate that purchasing to hopefully meet intentions of exponential growth over the next 5 fiscal years. The county is eagerly waiting and watching as additional segments come to market availability in work vans, light duty trucks and mid/heavy duty truck classes as well as street sweepers and other special equipment to move beyond our general use classes.
Public input on climate action plan
Lane County is beginning to work on a county-wide Climate Action Plan (CAP). The county has already conducted the first county-wide greenhouse gas inventory which can be found here. The next steps include reaching out to relevant stakeholders, the general public and focus groups to determine what the county can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To follow the county’s climate work readers can go to Lanecountyor.gov/ClimatePlan and sign up for monthly updates. These updates will include dates of upcoming public outreach and how individuals and groups can provide ideas for actions to reduce the impact of climate change.
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