Electrifying boost for the city
$77M headed our way from feds for school buses, charging station
The Biden administration has awarded the city $77 million in federal grants to expand its electric school bus fleet and install a new charging station for electric trucks in the South Bronx, Mayor Adams announced Monday.
The new grants, which are being given out under the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will add 180 new electric school buses in the city, quadrupling the number in its fleet, according to the mayor.
“We’re taking another big step toward our vision for New York City,” Adams said during an announcement in the South Bronx. “This is a huge deal and part of our overall master plan — $77 million to make New York City even more resilient. That starts with replacing dirty diesel school buses with clean electric ones.”
The $77 million in newly expected federal funding is composed of three grants. One, for $61.1 million, is coming from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and will pay for the 180 new electric buses. The second, for $15 million, comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation and will go toward a “freight-focused” electric truck charging depot at the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center in the Bronx. Adams said that facility is expected to charge “over 7,000 vehicles each year.” A third, $1.5 million grant, will help pay to develop an infrastructure plan for charging electric school buses.
The generous federal outlays come at an interesting time for President Biden, who’s running for reelection this year, and for Adams, who’s expected to run for a second term next year.
For months, Adams has criticized Biden and his administration for their response to the migrant crisis that’s engulfed the city for about two years. The mayor has contended that the federal funding provided by the feds to the city isn’t enough, and he ramped up his criticisms early this month when the Daily News first reported that much of the money promised by the federal government was tied up in paperwork.
The $107 million of federal aid in dispute was made available by the Biden administration last week.
On Monday, Adams took a more gracious tone, saying that the federal outlays for electric transportation would help the city reach its goal of having a zero-emission school bus fleet by 2035.
Along with Biden, Adams praised both Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan, Bronx) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) for helping make the funding a reality, as well as members of his own administration like Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi.
Joshi said one added benefit of the grants will be to help change people’s expectations about what transportation should look like in the Big Apple. “It’s not just about transportation. All of these kids riding electric school buses will now think that electric is the norm, and they’ll expect that,” she said. “That culture change is just as important as the emissions reduction.”