NYC Fire Officials to Install Ambulance Charger in Gowanus

Pictured: an ambulance charging station. Images courtesy of the FDNY

GOWANUS, BROOKLYN — The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) is installing ambulance charging stations around New York, and one of them is coming to Gowanus.

In between jobs, ambulances idle on streets throughout the five boroughs, explained Jeremy Brooks, a facilities director for the FDNY who spoke Thursday to Community Board 6's Transportation and Public Safety Committee.

The mini-hospitals-on-wheels have to keep their engines running to power internal equipment, Brooks said, such as communications systems and freezers that keep medicine cold.

According to Brooks, over a typical year, an idling ambulance will pump out about 45 tons of climate-warning carbon dioxide.

What's more, he said, ambulance engines take five years off their lives just by running in place.

To ease that burden, the FDNY is installing 39 charging stations around the city, each of them 4 feet tall. Ambulances will be able to plug into the stations and power their systems without running their motors.

Each station will cost about $12,000 to purchase and install. Most of the bill is being covered by a state grant, according to the FDNY.

Three chargers are already in place — one each in Staten Island, Queens and the Bronx, Brooks said.

The fourth will be installed at the intersection of 4th Avenue and Union Street in Brooklyn.

The FDNY will mark off a parking space next to the charger for ambulance use only.

But FDNY spokesman Frank Dwyer assured the public that this won't mean one less parking spot in the neighborhood, because the department's ambulances already idle within a three-block radius of each charger anyway.

Brooks said the charger will feature a cord that retracts back into the unit if it's unplugged, and draws power from electrical lines already in the street.

The Gowanus charger will be installed sometime in the next six months, he said. On Thursday, the CB6 committee unanimously approved the plan.