Transform the thousands of phone booths, now unused, into charging stations for electric vehicles. New York City has long been trying to figure out what to do with its currently useless public pay phones. Used today only as billboards, urinals or places to vomit, there are already those who have thought of re-evaluating them by making them bookcases mines for book crossing.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
Transform the thousands of telephone booths, now unused, in charging stations for electric vehicles. New York City has long been trying to figure out what to do with its currently useless public pay phones. Used today only as billboards, urinals or places to throw up, there are already those who have thought of re-evaluating them by making them mine bookcases for book crossing.
But the citizens of the Big Apple have another idea: they should be turned into charging stations for electric vehicles. This is, in fact, one of the most brilliant projects to emerge from the designers and architects who participated in the competition "Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge". Their goal was to answer, with projects, the question: “how can New York reinventing telephone booths to make the city more accessible, safer, healthier, greener and more informed? ”.
The city's 15-year contract with its pay phone providers expires next year. And to find a new way to use the 12 thousand cabins scattered throughout the Big Apple, it was decided to transform them into charging stations for electric vehicles, obviously equipping specially dedicated parking areas.
Mark Johnston, president at Van Wagner, welcomed he welcomed the idea and found it an interesting challenge in a telephone interview. But "There are questions to be answered about insurance or how long a car might be parked there," adds the President.
Rahul Merchant, head of the city's "Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications" is also interested and described the conversion to charging stations as "a great idea that we should definitely apply". To date, of course, there is not enough electric power on the grid to transform kiosks into charging stations for electric cars, but soon, perhaps, things could change. And we should take an example from those who can reinvent their street furniture.
Roberta Ragni
READ also:
- Old telephone booths become mini-libraries for book-sharing
