San Diego County just made the fueling challenge easier. It has a new "service center" to promote and provide alternative fuels. The Regional Transportation Center, a privately owned facility backed by some public funding, offers area residents a variety of environment- friendly options.
In addition to being a fueling station, the center has an alternative-fuel vehicle showroom, service shop and learning center. It is also a place to test out Segways, bring kids on field trips and even fill up on plain old regular gas. But the county's air pollution district was most excited about the options for offering AFV owners an easy way to energize their cars and trucks. "Alternative fuels give us lower emissions, which is our mission in life," says Chuck Spagnola, the district's transportation specialist. After hearing about the project in its earliest stages, "we told them if you ever do build it, we've got these programs and we'd be interested in funding some of it," says Spagnola. "Ultimately, they got to the point where they had a real project, and they came to us."
Grants from the district's various emissions-reduction and vehicle- acquisition programs helped the owners of the center install a half- dozen electric car chargers, the compressed natural gas fuel pump and a liquefied propane gas facility, all of which came to a total of $250,000.
