This agreement provides funding under the inflation reduction act (IRA) to the city of evansville to implement the moving evansville towards a healthier future project

This $20,000,000 Project Grant award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants Program (CFDA 66.616) will fund the "Moving Evansville Towards a Healthier Future" project in Evansville, Indiana. The project comprises four integrated, mutually reinforcing initiatives designed to comprehensively address community challenges related to poor air quality, related health impacts, and lack of clean transportation systems, while simultaneously increasing equitable access to clean transportation options across environmental justice communities in the project area. Key strategies include transitioning to clean, low-emission transportation options and improving outdoor air quality and public health resilience. The award period is from March 17, 2025 to April 30, 2025.

Specifically, the project will consist of four complimentary projects designed to comprehensively address community challenges including poor air quality, related health impacts and lack of clean transportation systems, while simultaneously increasing equitable access to clean transportation options across EJ communities in the project area. In direct response to the challenges of poor air quality and increasing climate change impacts affecting community health and resilience, and a lack of clean transportation solutions, evansville selected the following strategies for this application: climate action strategy 2: mobility and transportation options for preventing air pollution and improving public health and climate resilience, and pollution reduction strategy 2: outdoor air quality and community health improvements. Evansville proposes to implement these strategies with four integrated, mutually reinforcing projects that facilitate our vision of a community-wide transition. The four proposed projects are integrated and mutually reinforcing to achieve both strategies simultaneously. Climate action strategy 2 is addressed through a comprehensive transition to clean, low-emission transportation options as well as improving outdoor air quality and public health and resilience that addresses pollution reduction strategy 2, which is addressed by expanding personal EV adoption and awareness of available clean transportation options and promoting the adoption and use of the clean transportation systems implemented to address climate action strategy 2. By implementing synergizing projects to simultaneously address the complementary strategies in this one application, the positive impacts of the four projects and associated benefits: reducing air pollution, improving outdoor air quality, increasing transportation options, and improving public health and resilience for disadvantaged residents of the project area will be maximized. Activities:the activities include project 1: mobility hub investments and electrified bikeshare. The city's transportation services, which oversees the metropolitan evansville transit system (METS) and the city engineer's office, will partner with evansville metropolitan planning organization (EMPO) and collaborating entity evansville trails coalition (etc) to designate 15 'mobility hubs' throughout the city to encourage adoption and use of a variety of low and zero emission transportation options. The mobility hubs have been identified using criteria such as proximity to public transit bus stops, frequent microtransit pick-up and drop-off points, bikeshare stations, and proposed EV charging station locations. Additionally, transportation services will prioritize and implement 4.1 miles of sidewalk improvements at these mobility hubs to improve equitable access and ease of transition among all modalities. As the administrator of the current bike share system, etc will upgrade the service by adding 100 electric BIKES (E-BIKES) in more locations. This comprehensive, multimodal, clean transportation system will encourage individuals to reduce private and gas-powered vehicles to improve outdoor air quality and public health. Project 2: EV microtransit and solar power retrofit. METS will pursue ambitious electrification and expansion of its on-demand microtransit program, METS micro, and retrofit bus transit facilities to accommodate solar power. First, METS will expand on the success of its recent pilot program, METS micro, by partnering with contracted service provider via transportation to add 16 EV vans to the current three-vehicle fleet. These additional vehicles will enable a citywide expansion of the shared ride service, providing increased mobility access for disadvantaged communities to access ES