Matthew Helwig charges his car at a Greenspot Charging Station at 1361 Beacon Street, near Coolidge Corner on May 24, 2025. Photo by Muayad Al-Barwani
Brookline has received a state grant of up to $500,000 to install on-street electric vehicle charging stations.
The town is among 15 municipalities getting funds from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center for on-street charging stations. The grant will cover design, procurement, equipment and installation, with no cost to Brookline.
The Brookline Department of Public Works expects to install four to 10 charging ports at each of up to three sites by the end of 2026. The locations have yet to be determined, but Alexandra Vecchio, the town’s director of sustainability and natural resources, said efforts will target North Brookline because of its dense population.
Community input will also determine future charging locations. As part of Brookline’s climate action resilience plan, the DPW has released a community survey to learn residents’ climate priorities, and it includes a section on electric vehicles.
“In there, we’ve added basically a live interactive map so people can click in different areas that they would like to upvote as a spot they would like to see EV charging,” Vecchio said.
Most of Brookline’s 56 EV charging stations are in public parking lots. Vecchio said this initiative will focus on curbside solutions in an attempt to further develop the charging network.
The need for more charging stations is evident in Brookline, where gas-powered vehicles frequently occupy the spaces designated for charging and where EVs and plug-in hybrids make up 9.3% of vehicles registered in town – more than 40% higher than the statewide ownership rate of 6.6%.
“I have gotten into a situation where someone was just parking their car in an EV spot, and I can’t just move their car,” said Lio Cheristio, who has owned his plug-in hybrid Honda for about a year. “I would have to call the police to tow, and it just became too much, so I just had to go somewhere else.”
EV owners in Coolidge Corner say charging their vehicles can become competitive. Thamanai Jeremie said she regularly schedules her day around the task. Although she goes to Coolidge Corner Theatre or runs errands to pass the time while her car is charging, bad planning can throw a wrench in her day.
“It’s really like a game of chance – you really just gotta plan ahead,” she said.
EV owners say Brookline needs more fast chargers, which can drastically reduce the duration of charging.
“The fast charger takes two hours, but the regular charger like this takes endless hours,” Cheristio said. “It could take seven to nine.”
Brookline plans to install level 2 chargers at the new stations, which can charge an empty electric vehicle battery to 80% in 4 to 10 hours . Level 3 chargers can complete the same amount of work in less than an hour. The town currently operates 52 level 2 ports and just four level 3 ports.
People in town are using the existing stations. The number of unique drivers — individuals who have plugged into the network — increased from 425 in 2024 to 700 in 2025.
The EV initiative and grant take Brookline one step closer to its goal of being a net zero carbon emission community by 2040. To achieve that goal, the town has identified two sectors of substantial energy use: buildings and transportation. The DPW views vehicle electrification as one way to incentivize and make it easier for residents to shrink their carbon footprints.
“Providing these would possibly increase the adoption of electric vehicles and also improve access to charging for EV owners that are currently out there,” Vecchio said.