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Rocky Mountain Institute’s Project Get Ready Adds Two New Cities: Kansas City and Tampa Bay!

Initiative gains momentum as diverse communities bring new challenges and opportunities for widespread electric vehicle adoption

05.13.2010 – Snowmass, CO – Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) today announced the addition of two metropolitan areas—Kansas City and Tampa Bay—to Project Get Ready, a national non-profit initiative helping cities prepare for plug-in electric vehicles (EVs).

Kansas City and Tampa Bay represent a growing number of North American metropolitan areas that are collaborating through Project Get Ready (PGR) to share lessons-learned and best practices for EV readiness. They also reveal a promising trend in the increasing geographic diversity of cities that aim to be leaders in the shift to low-carbon transportation.

“Tampa Bay and Kansas City are significant additions to PGR because along with partners like Houston, Raleigh, and Indianapolis, they are debunking the myth that EVs will be ushered in only by west coast cities that are synonymous with the green movement, like San Francisco or Portland,” commented Matt Mattila, RMI transportation consultant and PGR project manager.

While dense city centers have been the focus of many EV rollout efforts and studies, Project Get Ready officials point out that these accomplishments, while important, are not sufficient.

Planning and execution in Kansas City and Tampa Bay (which includes not only EV integration but also mass transit improvements) will have broad implications for transportation planning for all Project Get Ready partners, and other cities pursuing EV initiatives because they face challenges that are familiar to a large proportion of metropolitan areas in North America.

“While they acknowledge that public transportation is important, the car is, and will likely remain the predominant transportation option for commuters in these areas,” said Mattila. “They have been extremely proactive because they see the need to provide their community with cleaner transportation and energy options, without disrupting their lives. Rather than asking people to make sacrifices, they are offering a better option—the freedom of a personal car without the oil consumption, noise, and emissions of a traditional vehicle.”

Given the high reliance on the automobile, a conversion to EVs in these areas may generate larger societal benefits than technology adoption in areas with lower car ownership, more access to transit, and fewer vehicle miles traveled. The two large metro areas both have populations of more than two million but less than half the population density of a city in the Northeast. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Tampa and Kansas City rank 69th and 71st, respectively, on transit trips per capita. It’s no surprise they have relatively high car ownership and freeway miles traveled.

The leaders in these regions have decided to challenge the notion that lots of cars and miles traveled equates to foreign oil and highway emissions.

“As regional planners, we continually ask ourselves what opportunities exist to reduce our dependence on oil and fossil fuels,” said Avera Wynne, planning director of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. “Project Get Ready gives us a way to work towards that goal. People are biting off different pieces of the apple at different times, and this gives cities with unique regional challenges a way to learn from cities that have already built a framework for their energy policy.”

Tampa Bay in particular will also serve as a case study for many of the challenges associated with regional EV charging and range anxiety. According to Wynne, four area utilities are serving as partners on the project.

“The number of utilities involved, and opportunities for coordination make this region an interesting example that can help our other cities,” said Mattila. “A major challenge is the difficulty associated with the management and communication needed with a utility and vehicle charging. What if you work in one utility district, but live in another? Where would your bill come from? Do they all offer the same special EV rates? Working with cities that have multiple utilities can really drive forward innovative and replicable programs.”

Get Ready Tampa Bay will have a public outreach event on June 22nd at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.

For more information on PGR and Kansas City, visit www.marc.org/newsreleases/marc050610.htm.

For more information on Get Ready Tampa Bay, visit http://getreadytampabay.org/.