Clean Transportation for New York: A Long Road Ahead

Moving Forward: Steps to Speed the Transition to Alternative-Fuel Vehicles

A new report by INFORM, Clean Transportation for New York: A Long Road Ahead, reveals the slow pace of progress in shifting to alternative-fuel vehicles in New York State. In releasing the research results, INFORM also highlights bolder and more comprehensive steps that New York City and State leaders could take to jump-start the shift to alternative-fuel vehicles:

Increase the number of AFV refueling stations and rationalize their distribution. New York State should expand and expedite its efforts, including the existing Infrastructure Plan, to establish AFV refueling stations along the New York State Thruway and other major highway corridors.

• Raise revenues for AFV acquisition, infrastructure, and related projects through an annual vehicle registration fee in areas where air quality fails to meet federal standards. In California, air pollution control and air quality management districts receive $4 per registered vehicle through such a surcharge, which they use to procure electric and other clean-fuel vehicles.
  
• Increase the AFV refueling infrastructure in urban areas by making public transit clean-fuel depots available for general light-duty vehicle use by city agencies and private citizens.
  
• Remove a major economic obstacle to the use of AFVs by establishing market competition between alternative transportation fuels and gasoline and diesel. New York could provide relief to marketers of compressed natural gas and to CNG vehicle operators by eliminating the taxes on CNG used as a vehicle fuel or by instituting a temporary CNG fuel tax credit.
  
• Focus on increasing procurement of clean-fueled, heavy-duty vehicles, especially urban and school buses and garbage trucks.