School buses should go electric: boosters
The city’s purchase of hundreds of yellow buses could jump-start what has been a slow effort to add electric vehicles to the diesel-guzzling schoolbus fleet, advocates argue in a new report.
Environmental advocates and lawmakers have pushed city officials for years to introduce clean technology into the sprawling school bus system that transports 150,000 students each day. So far, there’s been one 2018 pilot to add four electric buses to the fleet.
But electric bus proponents say the city has a golden opportunity to supercharge the effort with its purchase of Reliant Transportation Co., the city’s largest school bus operator.
The city-run nonprofit controlling the nearly 1,000 Reliant-owned bus routes “should take leadership on electrifying the city’s buses,” said Ian Elder, a senior researcher at Jobs to Move America and author of the new report.
“We definitely think this is an opportunity for the city to back up what they’re saying about electrifying fleets,” added Jenny Veloz of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
Electric school bus proponents say clean tech would help address the polluting effects of diesel vehicles that devour tons of fuel each day and spit it back out in exhaust.
“Pre-COVID, when everything was normal ... you have these very vulnerable children on these buses, inhaling toxic fumes for hours a day,” said Veloz.
Elder said researchers have found that exhaust fumes are up to three times as potent for passengers inside the bus as for those outside.
Union officials say electric vehicles would also be a relief for school-bus workers who struggle with the effect of fumes from hours of driving and time spent in bus depots.
“You have a schoolyard of 300 to 350 buses all warming up in the morning, there’s a cloud of diesel,” said Michael Cordiello, the president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181, which represents school-bus workers. “Drivers, attendants, mechanics, breathing that stuff in.
Kids get on the buses and they smell like diesel sometimes.”
Veloz said advocates have mapped where bus depots are located — finding they’re disproportionately placed in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods.
“A lot of these bus depots in these vulnerable communities … communities that have already borne the burden of environmental justice issues,” Veloz said.
Elder said as more districts have piloted electric vehicles, they’ve worked out some of the kinks. School-bus operators have figured out how to charge the buses at night when electricity is cheaper, and are working on ways to allow buses to release excess energy back into the power grid. “They work really well,” Elder said.
The biggest barrier is still cost, Elder said, adding city officials will need support from the state to expand electric bus fleet. Advocates say the city should start by expanding the pilot to between eight and 12 electric buses.
They’re also urging the City Council to pass legislation requiring the city to replace each out-of-commission diesel school bus with an electric one starting in 2040.
The Education Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment.