Montreal has set an ambitious EV charging station target. Is it realistic?
Goal of 11,000 more stations raises eyebrows after it took years to install 3,000
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante's administration is aiming to install 11,000 more electric vehicle charging stations across the island by 2030.
That's well ahead of the federal and provincial governments' goal of eliminating the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035.
"Everywhere on the island, we want our community to feel safe having access to charging stations," said Marie-Andrée Mauger, who is in charge of ecological transition and the environment on the city's executive committee.
The announcement came as Plante hosted the Montreal Climate Summit, which included participants such as Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette and his federal counterpart, Steven Guilbeault.
Hundreds of people from business, philanthropy, labour, politics, community organizations and environmental groups attended the event's fourth edition Tuesday in the Old Port.
Mauger said the city is already working with businesses to make sure the EV stations already installed on their property are accessible to the public. There are currently more than 3,000 charging stations across the city.
"We want to more than triple this number in the next five years. It's again another ambitious target," she said.
Ambitious target raises questions
That target is so ambitious, the Quebec Electric Vehicle Association questions its feasibility.
"When they tried to install 2,000 charging stations and they had six years to do it, they had a lot of difficulty attaining that number. So now 11,000 is a huge number," the association's president, Simon-Pierre Rioux, told CBC News.
Rioux said he wonders if all of the stations will be accessible to the public. He hopes some of them are installed in densely populated areas such as the Plateau, where there aren't enough to meet demand, he said.
"Right now, it's pretty tough," he said.
And, he added, they need to be permanent. Dozens of them were removed in the last two years due to street parking being transformed into bike lanes, he said.
Many areas in Griffintown and around the Palais des congrès have lost their charging stations because of this, and were never replaced, he said.
Access to EV charging is coming, city says
The city agrees more access is needed.
In Montreal, where 80 per cent of homes are row housing, many residents don't have private parking. If households are to be encouraged to switch to electric transportation, access to charging must also be improved, said Mauger, who is also borough mayor of Verdun.
"We really want to offer access to [charging stations] in the evening and at night for residents — not necessarily on public land; it could be on private property," said Mauger, citing shopping malls and industrial or school parking lots as potential locations.
But the city's Official Opposition questions the cost of such a project.
"The target of 11,000 public charging stations by 2030 is certainly ambitious, but so far, it's just a promise without a budget," said Alba Zuniga Ramos, Ensemble Montréal's critic on active transportation and transport electrification, in a statement.
He accused the administration of not making electrifying transportation a priority over the years.
CBC News asked Plante's spokesperson for information about the cost and who would cover that cost, but was told to contact the city's media relations department Tuesday. The department has not yet responded.
Plante, now nearing the end of her second and final term, said she has given the city much more than just bike paths — something she takes pride in and is often associated with, but her legacy is broader.
Beyond EV charging stations, Plante said she would focus on tripling protected green spaces, planting 500,000 trees and expanding sponge parks to manage flooding.
She also emphasized embedding ecological transition into all city planning and decision-making processes, making environmental considerations a fundamental part of how Montreal designs neighbourhoods and implements projects.
"So we want to make sure that we continue to increase the amount of green spaces and parks," said Mauger.
Written by Isaac Olson, with files from Radio-Canada and CBC's Gloria Henriquez