{"id":28799,"date":"2021-02-26T18:15:47","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T23:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=28799"},"modified":"2021-02-26T18:15:53","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T23:15:53","slug":"aurora-begins-greening-the-fleet-to-reduce-emissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-begins-greening-the-fleet-to-reduce-emissions\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora begins \u201cgreening the fleet\u201d to reduce emissions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The \u201cgreening\u201d of Aurora is set to continue \u2013 one vehicle at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week, Council is expected to give its approval, subject to budget implications, of a Green Fleet Action Plan, a plan which will chart a course to turning vehicles used for municipal purposes, such as public works, over to electric, hybrid and biodiesel models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan received tentative approval at last week\u2019s General Committee meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it will still be some time before medium and heavy-duty vehicles are electrified, the Town is keeping an eye on light duty electric trucks which recently hit the market for possible adoption as needs arise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, however, the Town earmarked three hybrid SUV vehicles as part of the 2019 and 2020 Capital Budgets. These will arrive sometime this year and will give municipal workers a chance to test the technology in the workplace while, says Parks and Fleet Manager Sara Tienkamp, \u201cexploring the potential for rightsizing and converting to vehicles with lower emission options.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2021 will also see a transition of existing diesel fleet vehicles to biodiesel fuels in a bid to reduce emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe short term (2022 to 2026) Capital Budget implications of the proposed GFAP (Green Fleet Action Plan) are estimated to be $105,000 to $110,000,\u201d said Ms. Tienkamp in a report before last week\u2019s General Committee meeting. \u201cThis includes funding for GPS hardware to outfit the Parks and Bylaw vehicles. In addition, potential exists to convert to hybrid models for a limited number of vehicles currently in the Capital Repair and Replacement 10-year plan. Based on manufacturers\u2019 pricing, hybrid vehicles will require an additional 20 per cent funding to be included in capital requests for Council consideration upon endorsement of the GFAP.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dominating last week\u2019s discussion was less the cost implications moving forward but the immediate impacts on residents, including a provision in the plan to move the public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations currently at Town Hall and the Aurora Community Centre to the Joint Operations Centre for sole use by parks and fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presently in place to allow residents to power up their EVs free of charge, a plan that was initially seen as a way to promote EV use within the community, the current models do not allow for a pay-for-use option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Waters, Director of Planning for the Town of Aurora, addressed the concerns expressed by Councillor John Gallo, who said the station outside of Town Hall was well used by residents. Mr. Waters said the Town is trying to access public money to increase the number of EV charging stations across the community and a policy for doing so is due to hit the Council table in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey (the ones at Town Hall and the Community Centre) would be moved to the JOC where we would be using it for our own vehicles, but the other infrastructure we put in the community would simply recapture the cost of the actual electricity but provide the station,\u201d added CAO Doug Nadorozny. \u201cThere will be some there, they will just be like all the other standardized ones where you will pay for the actual electricity you will be using.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact these stations will ultimately be replaced with something else, albeit one that comes at a cost, was something Councillor Gallo said he was \u201cfine\u201d with, but Councillor Harold Kim questioned where the responsibility lay in the various levels of government to provide capital for these charging stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t a clear-cut line,\u201d said Al Downey, Director of Operations. \u201cWhat we\u2019re looking at is trying to reduce greenhouse gases, so that is the main reason we\u2019re looking at electric vehicles and some of the infrastructure that is involved in them. It doesn\u2019t seem to be anyone who is saying, \u2018this is the way it should be done\u2019 and being ultimately responsible for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillors Rachel Gilliland and Wendy Gaertner welcomed the plan, with the latter underscoring the new anti-idling policy floated in it that will apply to municipal vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going forward with pay-for-use charging stations \u201cmakes sense for efficiency,\u201d she said, but wondered if whatever users are ultimately charged would cover just the cost of the electricity or whether the costs of the stations themselves would be factored in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe policy that will be coming out next month will deal with the rate for charging,\u201d said Mr. Waters. \u201cWhat we\u2019re hoping to receive is some grant money to offset some of the cost and then the charging rate will be what the market is charging now for electricity\u2026 to try to make it as revenue neutral as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Councillor Gaertner: \u201cIf we don\u2019t get the grant, can we think about how we can actually make it as revenue neutral as possible? We are providing a service and it would be nice if we could do it absolutely free, but we\u2019re tight for money too. Maybe we can just defray it a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cgreening\u201d of Aurora is set to continue \u2013 one vehicle at a time. This week, Council is expected to give its approval, subject to budget implications, of a Green Fleet Action Plan, a plan which will chart a course to turning vehicles used for municipal purposes, such as public works, over to electric, hybrid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7uv","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 10:27:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}