OP-ED | We Don’t Talk About E-Bikes

April, when the world emerges from hibernation, is the top month for bike sales, according to BiCi Co., a bicycle shop in Hartford. May is National Bike Month. We are approaching the one-year anniversary of Gov. Ned Lamont signing the Connecticut Clean Air Act. Our state’s e-bike rebate program has yet to roll out.

Last week, DEEP published its 1990-2021 Connecticut Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, with Commissioner Dykes saying how the “transportation sector continues to be by far the largest source of our emissions.”

If only DEEP, the agency tasked with creating and administering the program providing rebates to state residents who buy e-bikes could do something about that.

The program could have begun as early as last July, but we have seen a series of adjusted deadlines. I had questions about this; DEEP did not respond ahead of a generous deadline for comment.

“Targeting rebates to people in more urban settings who don’t have a car, don’t want a car, don’t have a place to put a car,” is a strategic approach to ensuring that green transportation is equitable says the Acadia Center’s Amy Boyd, Vice President, Climate and Clean Energy Policy.

We are in a time to rethink how we want our world to be, how we want our society to operate. Boyd explains that “in decarbonizing transportation we’re hoping to not just shift vehicles from being fossil fuel-powered to being electrified, but also shift how people move around.”

To read the full op-ed, click here.