Bridgeport Transit gets greener

BRIDGEPORT — Maybe Gov. Ned Lamont has something.

Maybe the Greater Bridgeport Transit District should change its name to the Greener Bridgeport Transit District.

After all, they unveiled the first two battery-powered electric buses Monday with another three to come by early 2022.

“We are so excited to have these buses — the first two deployed fully electric buses in the state of Connecticut,” said Joseph Kubic, chairman of the Greater Bridgeport

Transit board of commissioners.

Each replacement of a diesel bus with an electric bus will avoid 230,000 pounds of carbon dioxide each year — the equivalent of planting 5,000 trees.

The buses also mean lower fuel costs, but, the governor said, there’s also a health benefit. Lamont said the switch to electric buses is part of a statewide effort to reduce environmental health hazards that have caused increases along Interstate 95 in respiratory illnesses, particularly asthma.

He said transportation is the cause of “70 percent of air pollutants and 70 percent of what affects asthma.” But, the governor believes, Bridgeport is on the cusp of reducing this.

“We’re getting rid of the last coal-fired power plant (in Bridgeport). That’s just on standby. That’s gone within a year,” the governor said. “(Bridgeport) is going to be a center of wind power over the next five, 10 years.”

And, Lamont predicted: “We are going to have an all non-carbon, green grid over the next 15 years. Right now we’re over 50 percent noncarbon going forward.”

Lamont, Kubic, and Douglas Holcomb, chief executive officer of Greater Bridgeport Transit, were joined by Garrett Eucalitto, deputy director of the state Department of Transportation, Victoria Hackett, deputy director of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and Shantya Holmes, deputy director of the Department of Housing and others at the unveiling which took place in the Transit District’s Cross Street garage Monday.

Holcomb said the Transit District’s 80 drivers are being trained to operate the two buses on shadow routes without patrons and all its mechanics are learning how

to work on them.

Once in use, they will seat

20 passengers when they go into full duty at the end of October, he said.

“We want to see how these work, day in and day out,” Holcomb said.

Once the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, the buses can handle 54 passengers.

Holcomb said the buses can travel about 150 miles or nearly seven hours before requiring a 3-and-a-halfhour battery charging. The three future buses are expected to go about 200 miles before being recharged.

The two new buses each cost $933,226, while their electric chargers cost

$60,000. Federal and state funding paid for this.

The cost is about double that of a diesel-powered bus.

However, Holcomb said these two buses, if driven

85,264 miles annually, will reduce diesel fuel consumption by 24,000 gallons. That translates into a savings of

$39,600, at $1.65 per gallon. He also said there will be about a 30-percent reduction in maintenance costs as compared to diesel buses.

Eucalitto, the deputy DOT commissioner, said Bridgeport’s five buses are just the start. He said the state is looking to buy 15 more over the next few years and split them between the New Haven and Hartford Connecticut Transit divisions. Three will go to the fast track line running between Hartford and New Britain, he said.