Our beautiful state of Oregon boasts about 2,000 public transit buses and 7,975 school buses. Just 14 of our 9,975 total buses run on electricity, with no tailpipe emissions. That’s .001%. Oregon’s other 9,961 buses are fossil-fueled, mostly diesel, despite Oregon having some of the cheapest, cleanest electricity on the continent, and robust climate goals, to boot. What is holding us back from electrifying at a steady clip? Hint: it’s not just money.
Social inequity makes electrifying more urgent. Low-income folks and people of color depend disproportionately on both Oregon’s public transit and its school buses. This means they breathe in toxic diesel-bus exhaust at higher rates, with badly elevated disease outcomes. They also have less access to health care, and longer distances to travel in general, due to housing inequity.
To clarify: I’m an advocate not just for electric buses, but for buses in general. Buses are intrinsically great, reducing overall emissions as they take cars off the road, providing a measure of transportation equity, relieving congestion, etc. Advocacy, though, can include a let’s-improve, can-do attitude. Hence this pep-talky newsletter, the first one I’m sending to both my public transit and school bus audiences.
We’ve got a Berlin Bus Wall, and it hurts our progress in electrifying. I made this term up because there’s no relationship or communication between Oregon’s public transit system — which has four agencies running 14 electric buses total — and its school bus system, which doesn’t yet have its first electric bus on order. Electrifying is too hard without information-sharing between those doing it and those seeking to do it.
So, I’m organizing an Electric Bus info-sharing phone meeting in early 2020 for both school bus and public transit folks. I led a series of such meetings in 2017-18, at that point for public transit fleet managers, some running electric, some just dreaming of it. “Very valuable,” one of the then-dreamers says. He is now running his first electric buses.
Please reply to this email if you’d like to participate, and I’ll send you more information. There’s no charge for the phone meeting; I’m organizing it (and writing this) as a volunteer. While we lack, and sorely need, dedicated funding sources for electric buses and charging infrastructure in Oregon, not everything costs money. Learning is a big component of electrifying, and talking with each other is free.
Nobody is to blame for our Berlin Bus Wall. It exists because the funding sources and agency oversight of the two bus systems are completely separate. The wall isn’t not unique to Oregon; it exists too in other (less exceptional) states. And I’m not unique in working to bring it down.
For example, Cascades East Transit and Bend La Pine School District, both in Central Oregon, are talking to each other. They’re both interested in possibly electrifying aspects of their bus fleets, and have mentioned the idea of shared charging infrastructure.
Whether or not shared infrastructure can work out, the bus organizations of Central Oregon are setting a great example. Every conversation like theirs helps to bring down the wall between transit folks and school bus folks. Like the old Berlin Wall in Germany, the bus wall between public transit and school buses has become outdated. It separates people who are naturally connected to each other, and who need to move forward together. Who can you talk with in your town who’s on the other side of the wall?
Here’s some general across-the-wall info: Nationwide, school buses (forming the pupil transportation system) number about 480,000, and public transit buses about 66,000. However, school buses supply more than twice as many passenger rides as public transit buses plus rail combined. Transit/rail , though, operates far more hours and miles per year than school buses. Children’s lungs are especially vulnerable to (damaged by) diesel exhaust, which makes electrifying Oregon’s diesel school bus fleet especially important.
The 14 electric buses currently in Oregon: Lane Transit in Eugene has five BYD’s; TriMet in Portland runs five New Flyers; SMART in Wilsonville is running two Proterras; Josephine Community Transit in Grants Pass has two Complete Coachworks buses.
Some fossil fuels are cleaner than diesel, and a number of Oregon bus organizations use one or more of them: renewable diesel (not sourced from palm oil), propane, and compressed natural gas (CNG). Most impressively, Salem-Keiser Transit has approved a contract to start buying renewable natural gas (RNG), which exceeds electric in reducing carbon footprint, as shown in this carbon intensity chart (it shows up as Bio-CNG). RNG is a drop-in fuel for CNG, the same way renewable diesel is a drop-in fuel for traditional diesel.
My head now spinning with information, I’ll clear it by going running on one of the forested trails that make me grateful to live in Oregon. Happy holidays, and I’m looking forward to working with many of you in 2020, whether through this newsletter, or through my paid work with Center for Transportation and the Environment.
Alison Wiley (she/her/hers)
I am on the ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Chinook and Cowlitz peoples.
Whose land are you on?