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TN MOVING STORIES: FAA Funding Agreement Reached; Tappan Zee Bridge Tolls’ Worst Case Scenario; MTA, Union Resume Talks

Transportation Nation - 13 hours 18 min ago

Top stories on TN: NYC held its first bicycle station community planning workshop. How the stimulus revived the electric car. One academic says NJ Governor Chris Christie’s hiring recommendations at the Port Authority far outpace his predecessor’s patronage hires. House Republicans rolled out parts of a $260 billion transportation infrastructure bill. President Obama dropped by the DC auto show. Karachi has the most beautiful buses in the world. And: the history of Critical Mass rides.

Tappan Zee Bridge (photo by icadrews via flickr)

Lawmakers say they’ve reached an agreement on a $63 billion, four-year bill to extend the Federal Aviation Administration’s operating authority and the agency’s air traffic modernization effort. (AP via NPR)

The U.S. DOT is making $500 million available for a fourth round of TIGER grant funding. (DOT)

Engineers and transportation wonks are crunching numbers for the $5.2 billion Tappan Zee Bridge project to see what drivers might pay if toll revenue alone funds it. Worst-case scenario: $30 tolls by 2022, up from the current $5. (Crain’s New York Business)

New York’s MTA and the transit workers union will resume contract talks tomorrow. (Wall Street Journal)

Security video in the NYC death of cyclist Mathieu Lefevre differs from the description in the police report. (Streetsblog, New York Times)

The Motor City loses one of its rarest breeds: a woman car executive. (Forbes)

Florida Congressman John Mica needs to decide what district he’ll run in. (Orlando Sentinel)

Boston’s transit system set a modern ridership record in 2011 — but those numbers will almost surely dip this year, as the T considers fare increases and service cuts. (Boston Globe)

General Motors’ bankruptcy unit has agreed to pay nearly $24 million to resolve environmental liabilities at Superfund sites in New Jersey, Maryland and Missouri. (Star-Ledger)

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said a Congressional Budget Office report that the highway trust fund would be empty by fiscal year 2014 shows President Obama has been right to call for increased funding for transportation projects. (The Hill) Related stories

From the editor: Safe Streets? Who cares?

World Streets - 19 hours 5 min ago

It is a truly dreadful thing for anyone, me for instance, to lay on you anything as hackneyed as: a picture is worth a thousand words. But let me run the risk and show you a couple of pictures and … Continue reading →

Calm Reigns at First Planning Meeting for Bike Share Stations

Transportation Nation - Tue, 01/31/2012 - 23:55

Given all the sturm and drang that has accompanied New York’s bike lane expansion, you might think the first meeting to discuss where to put 600 bike share station when New York rolls out its bike share program in July, tempers would be hot.

After all, in a place where every inch of space is contested, figuring out where to locate 600 bike share stations is no small task.

But you’d be wrong.

Tuesday night the city held what will be the first of many planning workshops. About 50 people gathered in an overheated room on West 42nd Street to pore over large maps of Community Board 4, which stretches from 14th Street to 59th Street on Manhattan’s west side.

People taking part in a NYC DOT-led planning workshop (photo by Kate Hinds)

“We’re very excited,” said Corey Johnson, the chair of CB4. “I’m glad New York is finally catching up to something that has performed quite well in other cities across the country and across the globe.”

That attitude seems typical: ever since the city put up an online map requesting ideas, more than 8,000 locations have been suggested.

City Department of Transportation employees walked community members through a presentation about the bike share program, then unveiled a large map of the district that had suggested bike share station locations on it. There had already been some vetting. “We have technical criteria,” said DOT policy director Jon Orcutt. “You’re not going to put one that blocks a fire hydrant, you’re not going to block a narrow sidewalk.” He said there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to station siting. Some will be on wide sidewalks, some will be in the street, some will be in plazas.

Renderings of types of bike share station locations (photo by Kate Hinds)

Corey Johnson said for him, pedestrian space trumped parking. “[Bike share stations] may eliminate a parking space or two on a residential block, but it’s not going to eliminate sidewalk space for pedestrians,” he said. “So is it worth having a dozen bicycles that are easy access on a residential block and give up one or two parking spaces? I believe the answer is yes.”

Orcutt said the DOT had held over 100 meetings about the bike share program so far. “We’re talking to property owners, talking to everybody we can, and carving out space here and there,” he said. “You can’t just say they’re all going to be 15 feet from odd-numbered street corners. There’s no way. You have to go and plan each single one of these.”

Members of the community were invited to put green arrows on the station locations they liked, red on the ones they didn't, and black on locations where they wanted to suggest one. (Photo by Kate Hinds)

So dozens of people gathered around six separate tables and scrutinized the map, block by block. “This specific site, I think, is very challenging,” said Ben Donsky, the vice president of the Chelsea Improvement Company, as he put a red arrow on the map at 14th Street and Ninth Avenue. He said there was already scant space for pedestrians to relax, and that the sidewalk there is too narrow. “However, I think there are probably a dozen great locations right nearby.” Richard Gottlieb, who lives on West 44th Street, put a black arrow on West 57th Street. Why? “West 57th Street is a very busy area and it would strike me as a good place to have a stop. It’s that simple.”

Others were thinking more macro. “I really like the idea of using the bike share as a means of expanding the transportation network,” said Tyler Gumpright, who lives in Jackson Heights. He’d like to see stations “both close to existing transit options, like the subway, and putting them a little bit further away from existing transit.”

Those long crosstown blocks between Eighth Avenue and the waterfront were also on the mind of Steven Collado, who works in Herald Square. “People will come in from the subway and want to get to say all the way down to the Hudson River or even 11th Avenue, they’d have a long walk. If they had a bike share, they would definitely take advantage of that.”

They were singing Orcutt’s tune. “One of the places we think this will really serve are the parts of the city are developing fast away from the traditional subway spines, like the waterfronts and other former industrial places,” he said, “so you’re seeing a lot of feedback there. Like ‘hey, it’s really hard to get anywhere from here,’ or ‘I can’t get to the next neighborhood without taking a bus that takes all day.’”

Jess Berlin, who lives on the Upper West Side and works near Herald Square, said after the workshop that the experience was valuable. “I really liked the fact that they had a large map that we could really envision how the system would work,” she said. She lives in a fifth-floor walk-up, she said, and didn’t own a bike because she didn’t want to have to carry it up and down stairs. Bike share “makes someone like me able to have a bike in the city,” she said.

Orcutt said the next step is to take all the public feedback and “synthesize it into a recommendation, and then come back to community boards, business improvement districts, electeds, and get further input, make some further adjustments.” He said the city would have a final station siting plan by early summer.

Princeton Professor: Patronage Hires Under Christie at Port Authority Outpace Previous Governors

Transportation Nation - Tue, 01/31/2012 - 19:43

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (Governor's Office/Tim Larsen)

A Princeton professor emeritus and author of a book on the Port Authority says Governor Chris Christie’s hiring recommendations at the Port Authority far outpace his predecessor’s patronage hires. Jameson Doig, author of “Empire on the Hudson,” is speaking up after the Bergen Record published the names of some 50 employees, from executives to a toll collector, who were hired on Christie’s reommendation, most of whom have ties to the Republican party officials or their campaigns.

“Whereas Christie might have 50 people, the other Governors might have four or five,” Doig said in a phone interview from New Hampshire, where he also teaches at Dartmouth college.

Christie is defending the hirings. “I make no apologies about trying to put some people in place who are going to understand what the view of this administration is and execute …in a way that’s consistent with my policies,” he said at a news conference Monday.

Christie’s spokesman didn’t respond to Doig’s criticisms.

Shawn Boburg, one of the Bergen Record reporters who broke the story, said the hirings “cut against the grain” for Christie, who made his bones as a prosecutor crusading against corruption. (You can listen to an interview with Boburg here. )

The report says among those hired were an actor, a gourmet food broker, and the author of a self-help book by a Port Authority executive. The salaries total $4 million.

Christie says, under his watch, overall headcount has dropped at the bi-state transportation authority.

The Port Authority is not subject to the same disclosure laws as New Jersey state agencies, and has not released the resumes of the 50 employees.
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House GOP Unveils 5-Year, $260 Transpo Bill

Transportation Nation - Tue, 01/31/2012 - 16:51

House Republicans rolled out parts of a $260 billion transportation infrastructure bill Tuesday, casting the legislation as a major vehicle for job creation and energy production.

The five-year bill reauthorizes highway, transit and safety programs but also eliminates or consolidates dozens of existing federal functions. Supporters said its designed to streamline federally-funded projects, cut bureaucratic red tape and give states more flexibility to spend money on projects they prioritize.

Congress hasn’t approved a “permanent” transportation bill since 2005, and if this one succeeds it will be the first successful bid following eight temporary extensions. But while groups representing the construction industry, trucking and other interests are supportive, Republicans and Democrats are bound to clash in an environment where parties have been more interested in showing their differences than their ability to compromise.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last week he gave the bill little chance of passage.

Republicans are calling their bill the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, and House GOP leaders are targeting it for floor action later in February. But there are some big hurdles standing between the bill and President Obama’s desk. More on that in an minute. First, here are some of the key provisions:

-A $260 billion, 5-year bill that feeds the Highway Trust Fund at $35 billion per year via the federal gas tax. Republicans intend to make up a sizable funding shortfall with revenue from expanded domestic energy production, including natural gas, offshore drilling, shale and other projects. Republicans stressed that the bill contains no earmarks, which is notable considering that the transportation authorization bill is a traditional home for thousands of them.

-Consolidation or elimination of some 70 federal highway and transit programs

-Elimination of transportation “enhancements” that require states to spend up to 10% of their federal highway money on non-highway projects like bike paths or beautification projects. “We’re going to get the maximum amount of money in our real infrastructure and hopefully people will see the difference,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fl., who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

-No federal Infrastructure Bank. Instead the bill expands from 10% to 15% the amount of federal highway dollars states can put into their own infrastructure banks, if they’ve got them.

-Expedited environmental review for many federal projects. Mica stressed that Republicans aren’t “running over” environmental protection rules, but that times for those reviews should be shortened. The bill also shrinks some consecutive environmental assessments into concurrent ones.

-$1 billion in expanded funding for state and local transpo loans under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA). It’s a popular program, and that one has bipartisan support.

-Cuts AMTRAK funding by 25% in 2012 and 2013.

-Has no provisions for high speed rail except for what Mica described as “placeholders”

-Increases the allowable weight for trucks to 126,000 lbs, another provision that has the rail industry hopping mad.

-New incentives for states to require that convicted drunk drivers must use breathalyzer locks to start their cars. Beverage and Restaurant groups are up in arms over the provision and are vowing a fight. “We’re going to work with everybody. The bill isn’t final,” said Mica, acknowledging the controversy.

And final it is not. Mica’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is set to mark up the bill in a marathon session Thursday. So long, in fact, that the chairman urged reporters to bring “hemorrhoid cream” to the session. But that’s only part of the work that needs to be done. GOP leaders intend to use expanded energy revenue to help pay for the bill’s big funding gap. That means that other committee’s, including the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee have to get involved to authorize new projects and raise money.

After that’s all done the bill goes head-to-head with a smaller, two-year Senate bill with significantly fewer reforms but higher spending for the Highway Trust Fund.

And here’s a twist to watch: Over the weekend House Speaker John Boehner suggested Republicans may use the bill as a vehicle to try and force President Obama to approve the controversial Keyston XL oil sands pipeline. That’s assuming the pipeline isn’t passed as part of a deal to extend payroll tax breaks and unemployment benefits through the end of the year.

Mica, who is fond of stressing the commonalities he and Senate Democrats have over transportation issues, laughed when asked if inclusion of Keystone XL might upset the chances for an election-year compromise.

“What are you, some kind of troublemaker,” he said.

Follow Todd Zwillich on Twitter @toddzwillich

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President Obama Drops By DC Auto Show, Checks Out Fuel-Efficient Cars

Transportation Nation - Tue, 01/31/2012 - 16:35

President Obama drives a Chevy Volt (2010 White House photo)

President Obama is making it clear he won’t miss an opportunity to push the narrative that bailing out Detroit was the right thing to do (particularly since Romney didn’t want to.)

The Preisdent walked into the showroom of the 70th annual Washington Auto Show this afternoon, where he inspected about 15 new electric and hybrid models from Ford, Dodge, and GM.

President Obama got inside man of the cars, sitting behind the wheel as he inspected the interiors.

Among the vehicles he viewed were the 2013 Ford C-Max Energi, 2013 Ford Fusion, 2013 Dodge Challenger SRT, 2013 Dodge Dart, 2013 Chevrolet Malibu Eco and the American Pride Camaro (colorfully decorated with illustrations showing the history of the U.S. military, starting from the Revolutionary War, plus American flags, U.S. presidents and a bald eagle).

After the tour, the President said: “When you look at all these cars, it is a testimony to the outstanding work that’s been done by workers, American workers, American designers. The U.S. auto industry is back. The fact that GM is back to number one I think shows the kind of turnaround that’s possible when it comes to American manufacturing. It’s good to remember the fact that there were some folks who were willing to let this industry die. Because of folks coming together, we are now back in a place where we can compete with any car company in the world. And these are not only selling here in the United States; they also serve as a platform for us to sell product all around the world. I’m just very proud of what we’re seeing here. That Camaro with the American eagle and the American flag, that helps tell the story. Thank you very much. Keep up the great work.”

Vice President Biden travels to Grand Rapids, Michigan tomorrow to visit the American Seating Company, which makes seats for buses, trains, stadiums, and concert arenas.

Expect to hear a whole lot more of this, this year.
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KALW Bike Week: Here’s the Origin History of Critical Mass from Three Founders

Transportation Nation - Tue, 01/31/2012 - 15:00

Since 1992, thousands of cyclists have gathered on the last Friday of every month to show off their bike pride by getting in the way of auto traffic on city streets in the Critical Mass demonstration rides.

As part of KALW’s special bike coverage, we bring you the history of the most prominent bike protest institution, as remembered, in a lovely audio montage of reminiscences from the movement’s three founders.

As they explain, biking in San Francisco was rough and tumble in the early 1990s: “Drivers used to throw things at you and tell you to ride on the sidewalk.” Anger was daily and universal, they tell KALW, ”a lot of obscenities … people would pound on their horn.”

So a mass ride to reclaim the streets for cyclists one night a month was planned. ”The beginning of it was essentially a bunch of people who had been talking about the idea of riding together as a political statement as an act of reclaiming the city,” explained the third founder.

About 50 people came from the first one, and within a year 1,000 riders were showing up for the monthly ride, originally called “the commute clot”.

That’s not such a catchy name for spreading a movement, so the founders tell KALW how the term critical mass came to be. They adopted it from a documentary by Ted White, Return of the Scortcher, where cyclists at a Chinese intersection documented in the film have to wait until there is a critical mass of bikes in order to break into the intersection and stop oncoming car traffic to cross as group, in safety.

Today, the gatherings take place in hundreds of cities, drawing thousands of riders in the biggest cities and follow no set route, blocking car traffic completely on avenues as the bike horde meanders through urban centers. Often times, the un-permitted rides provoke police responses that lead to arrests.

Listen to the full story of the start of critical mass, and how the unplanned routes came to be the norm.

If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player.

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PHOTOS: Karachi Does Public Transportation With Style

Transportation Nation - Tue, 01/31/2012 - 13:30

Hundreds of minibuses get commuters around Pakistan’s bustling port city Karachi.

Ladies ride in the front section of Karachi's minibuses. (Photo by Mansoor Khan)

Since there is no other viable means of public transportation, the buses get packed fast and can be risky to ride since they don’t stop for passengers to get on and off and riders often have to pile up on top of the buses if there’s no space in the bus cabin. These turn many Karachi locals off. But the vibrant good looks of the buses coupled with the fact that they are made by local artisans make Karachi buses the coolest form of public transportation I’ve seen to date.

This bus, made in 2008, has seen a few trips. (Photo by Abbie Fentress Swanson)

Karachi’s minibuses take months to decorate before they hit the road. First they are painted a base color. Then artisans cut eye-catching red, orange, blue, green and yellow plastic reflector sheets (chamak patti) into shapes — like hearts, diamonds and flowers — into small pieces with scissors. The shapes are then made into patterns, pictures or natural scenes — waterfalls, mountains and peacocks are popular — and affixed onto tin sheets that cover the bus exteriors.

Popular motifs include peacocks and stars. (Photo by Umair Mohsin/Flickr CC)

The names of bus operators or artists who decorated the buses — Brothers, Princ Khan, VIP — are often found on the vehicles, as are eyes that look out at passengers coming from behind. Other decor, such as chains with amulets, dangle from the front and back bus bumpers. Icing on the cake is flags, tassels and strings of beads.

This 2001 bus is operated by Brothers. (Photo by Abbie Fentress Swanson)

After you’ve seen the buses by day, take a drive through Karachi at night: that’s when tiny lights on the buses are all lit up.

The Karachi W11 by night. (Photo by Mansoor Khan)

How the Stimulus Revived the Electric Car

Transportation Nation - Tue, 01/31/2012 - 12:39

Nissan Leaf charging (Photo (cc) Washington State DOT via Flickr)

(Michael Grabell, ProPublica) [1]This story was adapted from “Money Well Spent?: The Truth Behind the Trillion-Dollar Stimulus, the Biggest Economic Recovery Plan in History [1],” which will be published Tuesday by PublicAffairs.

A common criticism of President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package has been that it failed to produce anything – that while the New Deal built bridges and dams, all the stimulus did was fill some potholes and create temporary jobs.

Don’t tell that to Annette Herrera. She was 50 when the auto supplier she worked for in Westland, Mich., closed its factory and moved the work to Mexico. Then, after being unemployed for 2½ years, she got a job in October 2010 with A123 Systems, which had received $250 million in stimulus money to help open a new lithium-ion battery plant in nearby Romulus, Mich.

“The first thing I did was call my husband and tell him, ‘You’re never going to guess! I got a job!’” Herrera recalled. “And then it was like celebration time.”

One success the Obama administration can duly claim is the rebirth of the electric-car industry in the United States. Automakers have unveiled a number of mass-market electric cars, which have seen small but rising sales. Battery and parts manufacturers are building 30 factories, creating thousands of new jobs. A123 has hired 700 workers at Herrera’s plant and a second one in nearby Livonia, and plans to hire a couple thousand more people over the next few years.

If it wasn’t for the stimulus, the companies say, they would have built these plants overseas.

It was all part of an effort to promote “green” manufacturing and put a million electric cars on the road by 2015.

The question is: Will it last?

Elkhart, Ind., once believed it would. It saw electric vehicles as its salvation after watching its unemployment rate hit 20 percent. Eager to seed a new industry, the county witnessed electric-vehicle ventures sprout out of nowhere as the stimulus took off in 2009.

But by late summer 2011, what had sprouted were weeds. The parking lot of the Think electric-car plant was full of them, some more than a foot high growing from the cracks. Out front were two pickups and a motorcycle.

Hundreds of laid-off factory workers were supposed to have found jobs churning out the Norwegian company’s bug-like, plastic-bodied cars, which ran solely on electricity.

Today the Elkhart factory employs two. Its parent company filed for bankruptcy in June. Its largest shareholder and battery maker, Ener1, which received $118 million in stimulus money, did the same last week.

A second life

Electric cars began appearing on California roads in the mid-1990s after state regulators mandated that a certain percentage of automakers’ fleets include zero-emissions vehicles.

But within a few years, they were deemed a failure by car companies, which stopped making them and took back those they had leased.

Much had changed in the eight years leading up the stimulus package. The lead-acid and nickel-metal hydride batteries that weighed as much as 1,200 pounds were replaced with lithium-ion batteries that weighed as little as 400 pounds.

In the early 2000s, gas hadn’t even passed $2 a gallon. Less than a decade later, it was twice that. Toyota had proven the demand with its long waiting list for the Prius hybrid.

Government policy had changed, too, with a 2007 energy bill that increased fuel-efficiency standards and provided $25 billion in loans for automakers to upgrade their plants.

But until the economic stimulus package was passed in 2009, the manufacture of electric cars and their batteries in the United States was nearly nonexistent.

The United States had only two factories manufacturing less than 2 percent of the world’s advanced batteries. Most were made in Korea and Japan. In America, only Tesla manufactured an electric car — which sold for a cool $100,000. Across the entire country, there were a mere 500 electric charging stations.

But as the stimulus kicked in, there was suddenly no better environment for the electric car to thrive.

With more than $2 billion in federal grants, matched by another $2 billion in private investment, the Obama administration was supporting electric cars from the mine to the garage.

Chemetall Foote Corp., which operates the only U.S. lithium mine, received $28 million to boost production at its plants in Nevada and North Carolina. Honeywell received $27 million to become the first domestic supplier of a conductive salt for lithium batteries. More than $1 billion was spent to open and expand battery factories, many of them in hard-luck towns across Michigan. Through a separate federal program, automakers received loans to retool their assembly lines.

Customers could receive a $7,500 tax credit for buying an electric car. The stimulus provided funding for 20,000 electric charging stations by 2013. In many cities, drivers could get a home charger for free.

Although electric cars would not make up for the generation-long loss of manufacturing jobs, at least not yet, it was novel to see companies creating jobs in the Rust Belt instead of outsourcing them.

In July, Johnson Controls opened the first U.S. factory to produce complete lithium-ion battery cells for electric vehicles. Compact Power is building a $300 million factory in Holland, Mich., to produce batteries for the Chevy Volt and the electric Ford Focus. A123 now supplies the luxury electric carmaker Fisker Automotive and the manufacturers of electric delivery trucks used by FedEx and Frito-Lay.”Quite simply, if we didn’t get that grant, we wouldn’t have built [the factory] in the U.S.,” A123 spokesman Dan Borgasano said.

The battery grants have created and saved more than 1,800 jobs for assembly workers, toolmakers and engineers, according to a ProPublica analysis of stimulus project reports filed by the companies. That number doesn’t include the workers who constructed the plants or those hired by the matching private investment the companies had to make to get the grants.

Killed again?

The problem: Consumers have been slow to embrace the electric car.

The price of the battery is still too high, and the price of gas is still too low, the Government Accountability Office warned in June 2009 before the grants were awarded. The starting price for the all-electric Nissan Leaf is $33,000, while the hybrid Volt sells for about $40,000 before tax credits — far more than many middle-class families can afford.

About 40 percent of drivers didn’t have access to an outlet where they park their vehicles, the GAO noted.

“Although a mile driven on electricity is cheaper than one driven on gasoline,” the National Research Council reported, “it will likely take several decades before the upfront costs decline enough to be offset by lifetime fuel savings.”

Perhaps the biggest obstacle, though, was what the automobile represents in the American psyche: the freedom of the open road. While most people drive less than 40 miles per day, consumers want cars that they can also take on summer vacations — and they don’t want to have to constantly worry about looking for a charging station.

The Leaf’s range is just 73 miles, according to the official government rating, well below the much-advertised 100 miles.

By the end of 2011, fewer than 18,000 Leafs and Volts had been sold in the United States.

A report by congressional researchers last year concluded that the cost of batteries, anxiety over mileage range and more efficient internal combustion engines could make it difficult to achieve Obama’s goal of a million electric vehicles by 2015. Even many in the industry say the target is unreachable.

While the $2.4 billion in stimulus money has increased battery manufacturing, the congressional report noted that United States might not be able to keep up in the long run. South Korea and China have announced plans to invest more than five times that amount over the next decade. Even A123 had to lay off 125 workers in November — though Borgasano says the company plans to rehire them all by June — because Fisker reduced orders.

Dick Moore, the mayor of Elkhart, had hoped the area known for its recreational-vehicle factories would one day be not just the “RV Capital of the World” but the “EV Capital of the World” as well.

Navistar International had received $39 million in stimulus money to build 400 electric delivery trucks in the first year. But by early 2011, it had hired about 40 employees and assembled only 78 vehicles.

Think had rallied into 2011 with plans to start production in Elkhart earlier than expected. But in April, assembly work suddenly stopped as the plant awaited parts from Europe.

In June, Think’s parent company filed for bankruptcy. The decision left the Elkhart plant slouching toward extinction until the American subsidiary was purchased by a Russian entrepreneur who promised to restart production in early 2012.

But on Thursday, its battery maker, Ener1, also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reporting that the demand for electric vehicles “did not develop as quickly as anticipated.”

Elkhart’s dream of becoming the EV capital?

Moore put it this way: “The fact that this hasn’t moved very quickly, that doesn’t bode well for that idea.”

The future

The fate of the electric car depends greatly on whether sales take off soon.

There are other factors, such as the price of gas and whether Congress approves proposed standards requiring automakers to raise the average fuel economy of their vehicles to 55 miles per gallon by 2025.

The electric car has always struggled with a chicken-and-egg dilemma: Automakers have been reluctant to build electric cars without consumer demand. But consumers won’t buy them until automakers develop cheaper, longer-range batteries.

One of the goals of the ongoing stimulus spending is to solve this problem. By 2015, the 30 battery and component factories will be able to produce 40 percent of the world’s batteries, according to the administration.

The investments would help manufacturers increase the batteries’ life from four years to 14 and cut their cost from $33,000 to $10,000, the administration said in a report on innovation. That would make the electric car more competitive.

Herrera noted that many people at the A123 factory believe they will never be able to afford the cars powered by the batteries they make. But, she says, “you never know.”

“When the flat-screen TVs first came out, they were way expensive, and now they’re reasonably priced,” she said. “I think that’s going to be the same thing with electric automobiles. This is a new product. It’s going to take time.”