Replace Your Ride – Network Action Team

Goal: Help low-income Vermonters switch to clean transportation options affordably, while also accelerating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.

A Replace Your Ride program was pitched at the October 2020 EAN Summit.  After being selected as a winning pitch, a dedicated group formed a Network Action Team, led by by Linda McGinnis (EAN Senior Fellow) and Peggy O’Neill-Vivanco (VT Clean Cities Coalition), that researched, planned, testified, and did outreach to stakeholders.  By May 2021 funds for a $1.5 million pilot had been included in the Transportation Bill, and in 2022 an additional $3 million had been allocated.

The Vermont Agency of Transportation is now managing the development of the program, which began providing incentives in September 2022.  More information about this and other related programs is available on the Drive Electric Vermont website.

Background

The idea of this program was to provide incentives to help lower-income Vermonters scrap their older, high-polluting vehicles for a range of clean transportation or shared-mobility options. Modeled after the successful Clean Cars 4 All programs in California, Replace Your Ride was designed to:

  1. Be targeted to low-income Vermonters.
  2. Offer cash incentives to retire older, high-polluting/low-MPG vehicles.
  3. Allow incentives to be applied to a range of clean transportation or shared-mobility options (e.g., new or used EVs, transit vouchers, electric motorcycles/bicycles, shared-mobility vouchers).
  4. Stack on top of existing incentives to ensure the highest incentives for more efficient and affordable transportation options are targeted to the lowest-income Vermonters.

By scrapping older vehicles and replacing them with clean affordable alternatives, Vermont can accelerate its progress towards reducing GHG emissions while also reducing the transportation energy burden on low-income households. Trends in CO2 emissions and fuel economy for vehicles since 1975 are shown in the figure to the right. According to the VT Transportation Energy Profile, Vermont has a total of 593,705 registered vehicles (2019), of which approximately 40% are model year 2010 or older, and 60% are model year 2012 or older. For each older/low MPG vehicle taken off the road, the resultant GHG emissions reduction is up to three times that of a newer equivalent vehicle replacement, and significantly higher if replaced by a zero emissions alternative.

Network members and partners guiding this effort:

  • VT Clean Cities Coalition (Peggy O’Neill-Vivanco)
  • Linda McGinnis (EAN Senior Fellow)
  • UVM Transportation Research Center (Dana Rowangould)
  • Drive Electric Vermont, VEIC (Dave Roberts)
  • Regulatory Assistance Project (Nancy Seidman)
  • Vermont Vehicle & Automotive Distributors Association (Marilyn Miller)
  • Plus advisors from:  Capstone Community Action, Vital Communities, VT Public Transit Association, Sustainable Transportation Vermont, Vermont Natural Resources Council, Old Spokes Home, The Nature Center, Local Motion, Chittenden Area Transportation Management Association, Public Service Department, Agency of Natural Resources, VTrans, legislators, and others.

Resources:

Replace Your Ride Program Overview

Video of this Pitch at the October 2020 EAN Summit 

Note: Network Action Team projects were selected by the Network membership through a competitive process at the EAN annual summit.  Although Network members may support specific policy actions as part of their work on these Action Teams, EAN staff serve in the role of neutral convener and refrain from advocating for specific policies.