Stories
The traditional summer travel season will likely be kicking off with a very busy Memorial Day weekend. AAA is predicting more than 2 million New Englanders will be traveling this weekend, roughly 400,000 Connecticut residents will be among them. That would be a 6% increase over last year, but still shy of numbers before the…
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Summertime in New England is when people demand the most electricity from the grid because of air conditioner use. At those high-demand times, utilities turn to so-called peaker plants to supply the extra power. They’re often older, more polluting facilities, and they are expensive to run. But a project in Beverly, Massachusetts offers an alternative…
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E-bikes are getting more Mainers out of their cars — and could help the state meet its climate goals
It’s 5:15 a.m., and the sky is just starting to lighten in the east as Becki Morin rolls her electric bicycle out of her garage in Falmouth, Maine. Morin lives about six miles from Maine Medical Center in Portland, where she’s a nurse practitioner. She says she used to ride a conventional bike to work…
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So you’re in the market for an electric vehicle? Here’s how the new federal and Mass. laws will help
August has been a big month for the environment. At the national level, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which allocates over $360 billion to help fight climate change. And more locally, Gov. Charlie Baker signed a sweeping state climate and clean energy bill into law. Both laws cover a lot of ground. But one notable…
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On a recent morning in downtown Portland, a woman named Vitoria was waiting at a bus stop on Congress Street. Vitoria is an asylum-seeker from Angola, who arrived in Maine just a few weeks ago with her husband and two young children. On this day, she was trying to find her way to one of…
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Can you get there from here in Maine with a EV? That’s what Maine Public staff have tried to do while reporting on recent stories for Climate Driven. The main takeaway? EV drivers need to use extra care planning their trips outside of southern Maine, where most of the chargers are. Deputy News Director Susan…
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A Connecticut-run incentive designed to help low- to middle-income buyers purchase an electric vehicle continues to struggle. New data show income-eligible rebates accounted for only about 1% of all rebates issued through the state’s Connecticut Hydrogen and Electric Automobile Purchase Rebate (CHEAPR) program. “That’s not a significant uptake,” said Anthony Cherolis, who is with the…
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In Vermont, programs that help older residents get around when they can no longer drive are primarily paid for with Medicaid and federal grants. But funding is limited, and most of these door-to-door ride services are only possible because of volunteer drivers — usually older Vermonters themselves. The pandemic has strained this model, but many…
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On a recent weekday, Jaime Carillo and his son waited for the ride to school in their usual spot on the front porch of the family’s duplex. When classes first started, the two were spending a lot of time there; the van that takes his son to school was coming much later than its 7:28 a.m.…
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Public transit in Connecticut maintained higher ridership and smaller revenue loss during the pandemic compared to the rest of New England, according to a study released this week by The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Riley Sullivan, the author of the study, said federal stimulus funding offset the loss of riders in Connecticut and the…
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