New project aims for cleaner, more equitable transportation for Georgia’s Black communities – WABE

This coverage is made possible thanks to a partnership between WABE and Grista non-profit environmental media organization.

Several Georgia groups are working together to make transportation cleaner while 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 transportation electrification plans.

It is 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 moving away from fossil fuel-based transportation that worsens climate change.

Minority communities like those the project works with have often been left without access to public transportation or exposed to more pollution from cars and trucks.

“We built transportation based on vehicle culture, and we didn’t think about people’s health, rights and autonomy,” said Transportation Equity Officer Madelyn Collins electric for SACE.

“Electric mobility gives us the opportunity to transform the culture of transportation. »

The organizers stressed that this initiative is not just about electric cars and chargers. Electric mobility plans, they said, could involve public transportation, electric shuttles, electric bikes and scooters, while making communities more walkable.

“It will be up to the community to decide what best fits their needs, but the exciting thing is they will have the opportunity to choose,” said Sumner Pomeroy, Clean Cities Georgia program manager.

Organizers said once plans are developed, they will seek federal funding that matches communities’ needs and 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.