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Several Georgia groups are working together to make transportation cleaner while also ensuring it serves the state’s minority communities.
The Electric Black Futures project will work with Black communities in Atlanta, Albany and Savannah to develop plans for electrifying transportation.
It’s funded by $1.4 million in grants from the Department of Energy to three clean energy and electric mobility groups — the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, EVNoire and Clean Cities Georgia.
The initiative aims to correct past injustices while shifting away from fossil fuel-powered transportation that worsens climate change.
Minority communities like the ones the project is working with have historically often been left without access to public transit or exposed to more pollution from cars and trucks.
“We have been building out transportation based on vehicle culture, and we haven’t thought about people’s health, people’s rights, people’s autonomy,” said Madelyn Collins, electric transportation equity manager for SACE.
“E-mobility is giving us an opportunity to transform the culture of transportation.”
The organizers stressed this initiative isn’t just about electric cars and chargers. The e-mobility plans, they said, could involve public transit, electric shuttles, e-bikes and scooters, along with making communities more walkable.
“It will be up to the community to decide what fits best for their needs, but that’s the exciting part is that they’ll get to choose,” said Sumner Pomeroy, program manager for Clean Cities Georgia.
Organizers said that once they’ve developed the plans, they’ll look for federal funding that matches up with the communities’ needs then help local governments and agencies apply for those grants.
The governments of Atlanta, Savannah and Albany, as well as the Georgia Department of Transportation, are partners in the project.
