Milwaukee Wins $15 Million To Build EV Chargers At 53 Locations

Electric car charging station. (CC0 Public Domain)

Backed by a federal grant, the City of Milwaukee intends to install publicly-accessible electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at 53 locations with 228 total ports.

Senator Tammy Baldwin announced the $14.9 million Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) grant Friday.

“This grant announcement is wonderful news for the people of Milwaukee. It is a big stride forward in achieving our city’s climate and equity goals,” said Mayor Cavalier Johnson in an announcement distributed by Baldwin’s office. “I am extremely grateful to Senator Baldwin for her work and her guidance that led to this award. And I am similarly grateful to the Biden-Harris administration for prioritizing investments to reduce our reliance on fuels with the greatest climate impacts.”

City officials, during the 2023 adoption of the Climate and Equity Plan, said they were pursuing a grant to fund charging stations. The city, in early 2023, also adopted an electric vehicle purchasing plan for its own fleet.

In August 2023, President Joe Biden visited Milwaukee to tour Ingeteam, which is assembling EV chargers in its Menomonee Valley facility. The company added the line to the facility due to expected business originating from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is investing in Wisconsin’s future, creating countless good-paying jobs upgrading the infrastructure that families rely on to get to work and school. I am proud to have secured strong Buy America standards to ensure that we are using American workers and American products while we build out the infrastructure to give people more ways to travel around our state,” said Baldwin. “I worked hard to deliver this funding which invests in emission-free vehicle infrastructure, helping to improve the air our children breathe and creating more opportunities for Wisconsin workers to break into a family-supporting career that will only grow in the coming years.”

The City of Milwaukee, according to Baldwin’s press release, has already identified sites for the chargers.

“During the site selection process, the city prioritized sites in areas that lack existing EV infrastructure, low-to-moderate income communities, and neighborhoods with high ratios of multi-family housing units. This project will support the city’s climate and equity goals by expanding the network in areas that currently lack public infrastructure, or lack the ability to charge at home.”

Erick Shambarger, director of the city’s Environmental Collaboration Office (ECO), told Urban Milwaukee via email that the city hopes to refine the sites with more public input.

An ECO EV Readiness Plan says libraries were identified as desirable first phase (tier one) locations for the distribution, electrical infrastructure and parking lots. A total of 43 “tier two” sites were identified for additional stations. The chargers would be a mix of level two and DC fast chargers.

A map of existing, publicly-accessible chargers shows them to be clustered around Downtown.

In anticipating in a surge of EV charging stations being installed by public and private entities, the city updated its zoning code in 2021 to establish placement guidelines.

The State of Wisconsin, with private partners and federal support, is also building an EV charging network. In May, Governor Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation announced the first 53 locations that will receive federal funding to build out charging stations. The state, through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, expects to receive $78 million across five years to fund the network.

The city grant announced Friday is part of the the  FHWA’s Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program.

In July, the Common Council endorsed a request by the Department of Public Works (DPW) to apply for an Environmental Protection Agency grant to purchase 53 heavy-duty chargers capable of charging large electric vehicles like electric dump trucks. DPW, said finance and administration manager Chuck Schumacher at a July 10 Public Works Committee meeting, intends to purchase eight electric dump trucks initially.

The city’s electric vehicle purchasing plan has resulted in the purchase of one, $52,000 Ford Lightning pickup truck to date, according to a July DPW presentation. Approximately eight vehicles in the fleet of DPW parking checkers are also electric, four small specialized vehicles and four Ford Mustang Mach-E sedans. During the meeting, DPW officials said charging infrastructure at city facilities was a limiting factor as well as contracting timelines with vehicles often taking more than a year to arrive once ordered. The sole electric vehicle on order is a plug-in hybrid minivan, which Schumacher could be a function of the longer internal purchasing timeline and the timing of the ordinance’s adoption. Council members Robert Bauman and Milele A. Coggs said they would advance a future communication file for more information about an EV transition.

Shambarger, on Friday, said the charging stations would be built as a competitively-determined public-private partnership in compliance with recently overhauled state statutes.

Potential EV charging stations locations identified by ECO. From the City of Milwaukee EV Readiness Plan.