Electric car charging stations coming to Coolidge Corner, near Town Hall

By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent

Brookline will install electric car charging stations at two locations including Coolidge Corner by the end of October.

Stations capable of charging two electric cars at once will be installed in the Babcock Street parking lot in Coolidge Corner and outside of Brookline’s Town Hall near Brookline Village.

The town’s Transportation Board approved the locations Thursday night and drivers of electric cars can plug in for free—but they still have to feed the parking meters.

Brookline is one of 25 Massachusetts communities receiving electric car charging stations funded by $384,000 from a settlement by an Ohio-based power plant for pollution control violations, along with roughly $500,000 in federal grant money. The state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs announced the program in July and another 48 stations will be put at state locations, such as MBTA commuter-rail lots.

The stations, which typically carry a price tag of between $5,000 and $6,000, are expected to be in place by the end of October.

When the charging stations are installed in Brookline, the town will not charge drivers for the electricity they use, said Jeffrey Levine, Brookline’s director of Planning and Community Development.

But Levine said the town will be monitoring how much electricity is used in order to determine if eventually there should be a charge.

He said the town plans to buy an electric car that would use the charging station at Town Hall, but he said he doesn’t know if the charging station in Coolidge Corner will be used.

“We won’t find out unless we put one in and see if it works or not,” he said.