1,000 electric car charging stations coming to Montreal by 2020

The City of Montreal has revealed its plan to encourage the expansion of electric vehicle use by 2020.

The plan calls for 50 charging stations to be available in the downtown core starting this summer.

The stations will then be gradually expanded to 1,000 around the city by 2020.

To encourage the expansion of electric car-sharing vehicles available in Montreal, the city also said only electric vehicles will be eligible for universal parking permits used by car-sharing services like Car2Go and Communauto by 2020. 

The city unveiled its plan Wednesday morning at City Hall.

"Our administration is committed to making Montreal the electrification capital of North America," said Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre.

"The network of electric car-sharing vehicles will help to transform and improve the city's transportation options and reduce our footprint on the environment."

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More 'red tape,' says Projet Montréal

​Craig Sauvé, the transportation critic for Projet Montréal, questioned the plan to force electrification through permits. 

''We could have maybe put a bylaw together saying 'in seven years, you must all be electric' — simple. But no, we have to do this red-tape bureaucratisation, going through all these extra hoops," he said. 

"It's not like through that we're going to start encouraging development and innovation.''

Rollout

The city says that by the end of June, it will have 50 electric car charging stations installed downtown. By the end of the year, that number will jump to 120.

Last October, both the province and the city said they would be responsible for installing 53 charging stations each between the end of November and this spring. 

Most of the stations were slated for downtown Montreal, located on sidewalks next to parking spots.