Transit lobby group says electrifying Canada’s bus fleets will require $3 billion per year

A green-transit lobby group says electrifying Canada’s fleet of public transit buses will take a lot more money than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised in his big infrastructure announcement last month.

Trudeau’s, three-year, $10 billion plan set aside $1.5 billion as part of his effort to get 5,000 electric school and transit buses on the road in Canada by 2025.

Josipa Petrunic, the CEO of the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium, wrote in a letter to Trudeau Wednesday that’s not nearly enough. She is calling on him to make good on his 2019 election promise to invest at least $3 billion more into public transit each year.

“The problem is over the last two years, federally and also in organizations within transit, people have radically underestimated the cost of doing this upfront,” she said. “It is not cheap.”

The consortium, known as CUTRIC, is a non-profit organization seeking to advance zerocarbon technology in transportation. It counts among its members many of Canada’s largest transit agencies including in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and Winnipeg, dozens of private companies involved in electrifying transportation, as well as several electric utilities and universities.

Petrunic says an electric-battery bus costs between $1.1 million and $1.2 million, about twice as much as a $600,000 diesel version. Buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells can cost upwards of $1.6 million each.

On top of that they need charging infrastructure, including one high-capacity charging station for every eight buses on the road; the road work needed to install them; and upgrades at transit garages.