The Wall Street Garage became one of the new locations with city-provided electric car charging stations.
Asheville adds more electric vehicle charging stations with grant
ANNABEL GIBSON
News Staff Writer
agibsoni ©unca.edu
UNC Asheville received a grant
from Duke Energy to install elec
tric vehicle charging stations on
campus, but these grants for estab
lishments extend beyond the uni
versity.
“It’s just a way for Duke Energy
to spur a greater adoption of EV
charging, which you’re definitely
going to need if you’re increasing
the amount of electric vehicles on
the road,” said Randy Wheeless,
communications manager at Duke
Energy.
As part of Asheville city coun
cil’s Vision 2036, the $10,000 grant
provided by Duke Energy led to
the installation of electric vehicle
charging stations in Wall Street Ga
rage and Rankin Avenue Garage.
The city council’s operating budget
provided the other $10,000 used in
this project.
“We still don’t have a huge num
ber of electric vehicles here in the
area, but we want to make sure we
have the infrastructure as they de
velop,” said Harry Brown, Ashe
ville parking services manager.
Vision 2036, started in January
2016, encompasses a 20-year plan
to promote a clean and healthy en
vironment alongside a diverse com
munity with a thriving local econ
omy.
“We’re hoping that by having in
frastructure it will encourage more
folks to get them,” Brown said.
“So I expect it to start off slow, but
we’re hoping over time we’ll get a
lot more use out of them.”
A third electric vehicle charging
station was added to the Biltmore
Avenue Garage, but is privately
owned and operated, unlike the sta
tions at Wall Street and Rankin Av
enue which are accessible.
“I think one of the barriers to
more adoption of EV is the lack of
charging stations available to the
public,” Wheeless said. “You might
have one at home, but when you’re
out in public driving around maybe
there’s not one available. This was
a way to spur that on, I think we tar-
CONTINUED ON PACE tO
Usage fee for
STEAM studio
discussed at
board meeting
KATIE DEVOE
News Staff Writer
Surveys and petitions circulate
through the engineering department
in this month as some students and
faculty oppose the new enhance
ment fee approved by the Board of
Trustees in December.
The engineering department at
UNC Asheville partners with North
Carolina State University where
students pay a fee.
Andre Rucker, a senior engineer
ing student, represented the facul
ty and staff from his major at the
Board of Trustees meeting.
“They have an entirely separate
campus — known as Centennial
campus — multiple labs, multiple
facilities, on-campus professors
and such that we are not offered
here,” Rucker said. “And on top
of that they pay for the majority of
materials and supplies for our labs
and courses. So we were wondering
why the severity of this fee was up
to $1,000.”
Possible numbers for the fee
range from $250 to $1,000. Kennon
Briggs, the chair of the Board of
Trustees, said the board approved
$1,000 to be a maximum of the fee.
The process for the engineering
department to meet with the Board
of Trustees involved push from stu
dents, an initial meeting with the
former dean of natural sciences and
the current dean of natural sciences
and later a meeting with the faculty
senate.
Rucker started the petition to
have a reevaluation of the proposed
engineering fee.
“As soon as we found out about
it, I had 90 people sign the petition
within a day,” Rucker said.
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