Out of approximately 6.5 million vehicles registered in Indiana, around 2% are hybrid electric or all-electric vehicles (EVs). That percentage needs to rise quickly over the next couple decades if Hoosier communities are to meet the transportation sector goals outlined in their climate action plans.
To encourage more Indiana residents to swap their combustion engines for electric motors, the City of South Bend launched an informational website on EVs this summer that includes:
- A community EV infrastructure plan
- An interactive map of local charging stations
- Videos of Michiana drivers talking about why they drive EVs
- A public EV charging survey
The resource is an outcome of South Bend’s participation in the IU Environmental Resilience Institute’s 2024 Resilience Cohort program. As a member of the program’s climate action accelerator track, local government staff in South Bend’s Office of Sustainability received training in “Strategic Doing,” a framework for tackling complex problems, like community climate action, where solutions require extensive collaboration.
After receiving the training, city staff decided to apply Strategic Doing to the transportation goals outlined in South Bend’s climate action plan, which aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
“With transportation being the source of 29% of our city’s emissions, we thought this was a worthy test case for Strategic Doing, with its emphasis on collaboration, communication, and project milestones,” said Alex Bazán, South Bend’s Director of Sustainability. “The framework really helped us rethink how we do things as an office and how we can improve things we already do.”
