Indy gets money for electric vehicle charging stations in disadvantaged neighborhoods

The grant, which U.S. Rep. André Carson and Mayor Joe Hogsett announced Wednesday, will aim to place charging stations in underserved areas of the city. The federal funding comes from a grant program created by President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill in 2021.

The $15 million headed to Indianapolis will come from the Federal Highway Administration and is expected to go specifically toward placing electric vehicle charging stations in areas that critics say were ignored by the Indiana Department of Transportation’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Plan, according to a news release from the offices of Carson and Hogsett.

Indiana’s plan was approved in 2022, but racial justice groups criticized it at the time for failing to provide access to charging stations for communities of color, especially Black neighborhoods. In 2022, Carson, who represents most of Marion County in Congress, wrote to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg with concerns that Indiana’s plan fails to “provide connections to disconnected communities.”