Chicago community group advances EVs, despite federal setbacks

Yahoo

14-03-2025

It is easy to overlook the low-rise, cream-colored building on Chicago's Motor Row, a historic district that was a hub for auto dealers in the early 1900s.
Yet the newly purchased headquarters for Bronzeville Community Development Partnership at 2416 S. Michigan Ave. plays both a symbolic and substantive role in fulfilling the organization's mission of promoting clean energy and community-driven development in this predominantly Black, environmental-justice neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.
'We want to be able to tell the story of the Great Migration and how we are replicating that age of innovation here in the 21st century, with the transition away from fossil fuels to beneficial electrification,' said Billy Davis, general manager for JitneyEV + EVCharge, one of the partnership's initiatives. 'Not just in commerce and transportation but culturally in the arts as well.'
Since its foundation in 1989 as the Abraham Lincoln Center Business Council, BCDP has strived to promote sustainable economic development in Bronzeville.
The Bronzeville Microgrid, which the organization developed in collaboration with utility ComEd, is one of BCDP's main clean energy initiatives. As Chicago's first neighborhood-scale system of its kind, the microgrid services more than 1,000 buildings with solar panels, batteries, and fossil gas–fired generators.
Another major initiative, through the JitneyEV + EVCharge program, is to expand EV adoption among Black and Brown drivers to reduce carbon emissions and other pollution, which have been disproportionately concentrated in environmental justice communities.
BCDP also advocates for the construction of public charging stations throughout the city's South and West sides, where many communities lack access to such infrastructure.
This work, in addition to sustainability-focused development and cultural tourism projects, reflects a holistic approach to mitigating the adverse effects of disinvestment and climate change in environmental justice communities.
'What happens when a community transforms infrastructure, heritage, and innovation from vision to reality? In Bronzeville, 2024 was the year we proved that sustainable development isn't just a concept—it's a lived experience,' wrote Paula Robinson, president of BCDP and managing member of Bronzeville Partners LLC, in a January social media post. 'This year, we didn't just talk about change. We powered it—literally and metaphorically.'
BCDP moved into its current headquarters in June 2024 after purchasing the building with a grant from the state of Illinois, which included funding for a solar array and EV charging infrastructure. The organization also received a City of Chicago Climate Infrastructure Fund grant for energy-efficiency improvements to the building. JitneyEV + EVCharge was awarded a grant from that fund for purchasing EVs and installing charging infrastructure, according to Davis.
The complex, which is still being fitted out, includes a garage for JitneyEV; a visitor center and community meeting space; and spaces for the Urban Innovation Center, Innovation Metropolis, Bronzeville Studio, and the Bronzeville-Black Metropolis National Heritage Area, all of which are affiliates of the larger BCDP collective.
Owning the building allows BCDP to bring the various aspects of its work under a single umbrella and eliminates vulnerability to the whims of a landlord. At the same time, the building serves as a tangible symbol of the organization's focus on self-sufficiency and self-determination, which is especially relevant in the present political environment.
In Motor Row's heyday in the early 20th century, Chicago was home to multiple electric vehicle companies. And modern app-based rideshare services operate much like jitneys — taxi-like services that flourished in African American communities that conventional taxicabs often refused to serve. BCDP has married the two histories in its JitneyEV + EVCharge program, which aims to provide the community with an all-electric rideshare service and expand access to public EV charging stations.
BCDP recently purchased its first electric vehicle for the rideshare service and plans to purchase an electric passenger van in the future. BCDP also intends to install a public DC fast charging station on the outside of its new headquarters and a Level 2 charger inside the building's garage for its own vehicles, according to Davis.
'The building that we are in, the building that we own, was once home to electric automobile manufacturing companies at the turn of the 20th century,' Davis said, adding that it housed showrooms for Detroit Electric, Chalmers Motor Co., and Cadillac.
'So, it just resonates somewhat, that we are returning home, so to speak,' Davis said.
Once it is fully operational, JitneyEV's rideshare service will be especially useful in helping to fill in gaps in public transit in Bronzeville, which like much of the city's South and West sides, is underserved by public transportation.
BCDP is also adding its input into initiatives like the Chicago Transit Authority Better Streets for Buses plan, which aims to expand clean transportation options and develop safer streets in communities of color.
'If you're gonna electrify your bus fleet, why would you launch the 20 or 30 new electric buses anywhere other than in a Justice40 community where the air quality is poorest, where the need for a clean energy transportation solution is greatest?' Davis said, referring to the Biden administration program that aimed to ensure that Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities would receive a substantial proportion of allotted federal funds and other resources.
In 2024, BCDP participated in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Clean Energy to Communities program, which supports community-led projects. BCDP also collaborated with NREL, Argonne National Laboratory, and local universities to launch the EV Institute, according to Davis.
The EV Institute, still under development, has been tasked with empowering the community to implement mobility and transportation equity. For example, there are plans to provide in-person and online education about the benefits of electric vehicles, according to Davis.
This holistic view reflects BCDP's forward-thinking approach to electrifying transportation, said Julia Hage, manager of the transportation team at the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago, which works with BCDP on its clean energy and community development initiatives.
Like many environmental justice community organizations, BCDP is taking the lead on its own initiatives around economic development, resiliency, and climate mitigation, Hage said.
While welcoming technical assistance and financial resources from outside organizations, environmental justice–based community organizations are nonetheless taking a more assertive approach toward self-determination. The Center for Neighborhood Technology has embraced its supporting role in empowering environmental justice communities to take their rightful seats at the clean energy transition table, Hage said.
'Oftentimes with these different progressions of technology and transportation, the communities are left behind because they're not included in these conversations,' Hage said. 'A lot of harm has been done to communities because of top-down planning decisions.'
Beyond collaborating with BCDP on transportation electrification, Hage said her organization is pulling the group into transportation equity work, too.
This approach was evident in a recent 'EV 101' information session that the Center for Neighborhood Technology conducted to educate community-based organizations on how to promote electric vehicle adoption, in which BCDP acted as both a participant and a subject-matter expert.
'[BCDP was] able to also provide information to other CBOs, which I thought was a really cool benefit of having a cohort of community-based orgs,' Hage said. 'No matter where they were in their journey of electrification or clean transportation, they could share with each other things that they knew from their experience.'
While the Center for Neighborhood Technology and BCDP have multiple sources of funding outside the federal government, the sudden inability to rely on federal funding has made it harder for them to carry out their mission.
'That's part of our story now, too. We're going to continue this decarbonization even in the face of all these cutbacks,' Davis said. 'We have community engagement programs that are now on hold that we were relying on for this year and the summer. That won't happen, at least not in a timely manner, but we're going to do this anyway because we're using mostly city and state funds.'
The federal government's abrupt cancellation of promised funds has had a profound impact on the broader environmental justice community that the Center for Neighborhood Technology and BCDP are a part of. In the resulting atmosphere of uncertainty, many of these organizations are questioning any future reliance on the federal government, Hage said.
'The really alarming thing is, we're seeing these full-on pauses and stop-work orders; resources that have been already allocated are being told to stop,' Hage said. 'Some speculate like, 'Oh, it's just to confuse us. It's just to make us scramble. They'll have to go back on this. There's no way.' And there's other folks who are kind of like, 'We can't even trust this money anymore.' We're still just kind of on edge, like, 'Hey, is this going to happen?''
One potential strategy is to advocate for state and local clean energy regulations and carbon-free transportation initiatives, along with increased emphasis and reliance on state-level organizations, such as the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Hage said.
'I am sure organizations right now don't want to find themselves in this situation,' Hage said. 'And I'm sure that they will want to redirect their focus on 'What are grants that won't be suddenly paused or suddenly taken away from us?' And that's why I think the focus on state and local resources is in conversation. Though, a lot of state money comes from the federal government. So, it's kind of about 'How do we best utilize this money while we have it?''
The federal government's purge of environmental justice data makes it harder to direct resources to where they are most needed. Nonetheless, BCDP and other environmental justice–focused organizations are determined to continue moving forward while acknowledging the significance of the challenges ahead.
'The freezing of federal grants and loans previously appropriated by Congress has been disruptive and is being challenged in court as unlawful overreach. The ultimate impact, therefore, is not yet fully known,' Davis said in an email.
'However, we remain undaunted in our work advancing renewable energy and clean transportation as economic and workforce development opportunities that make our communities healthier, safer, more livable and sustainable.'