The Greenbelt City Council voted on June 2 to approve plans to electrify the various city vehicles.
The Fleet and Equipment Electrification Plan aims “to move the City of Greenbelt away from internal combustion engine vehicles and equipment to reduce our carbon footprint to be more environmentally sustainable,” according to the official proposal.
The focus of this electrification plan is from an internal perspective, directed toward city vehicles such as police, Public Works, administrative vehicles and even a trash truck. Handheld equipment, such as blowers and lawnmowers, will also be considered for electric replacements.
The plan is phased over a 10-year period, allowing the city to replace vehicles on the equipment’s normal wear-and-tear life cycle and stay within the allocated budget.
“Because electric vehicles and equipment tend to cost more than gasoline vehicles and equipment, we don’t want to replace equipment that is functioning right now,” said Assistant City Manager Timothy George at the meeting. “As the equipment rolls over in a given year, that equipment, those vehicles will be looked at for electric replacements.”
The timeline also allows for flexibility as new vehicle and equipment technology continues to develop. “We also want to pace ourselves, we don’t want to jump too quickly into electric and find that another technology is there in the wind,” said George. Greenbelt contracted ICF, a third-party firm, to complete a fleet conversion assessment to gather the data needed to create the timeline.
The assessment determined that the environmental impact of the fleet electrification is equivalent to 2,539 metric tons of carbon dioxide. “This is equivalent to taking 548 passenger vehicles off the road for a year or saving 863 tons of waste from landfills,” according to Greenbelt Environmental Coordinator Kevin Carpenter-Driscoll.
Councilmembers raised questions about which charging stations would be designated for city vehicles versus public use and whether city mechanics have sufficient experience with electric vehicles.
Council voted 5 to 1 to approve the plan, with Mayor Emmett Jordan opposed and Councilmember Rodney Roberts remaining silent during the vote.
Ellie Jornlin is a student at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism interning with the Greenbelt News Review.
