COVID 19 has turned the bus world* upside down, stressing it beyond anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Many readers of this newsletter have worked, directly or indirectly, on electrifying our nation’s mostly diesel buses. Our motivations have often been to protect community health and our shared climate (those are my motivations). But is this work still viable in the COVID 19 era?
Most of the 480,000 school buses in the U.S. have been sitting idle since mid-March when schools closed and moved to online learning, which puts low-income children at sharp disadvantage, despite educators’ best efforts. A small percentage of yellow buses are delivering meals and other crucial items to students – I observed that happening here in my neighborhood as I wrote this.
And most of the United States’ 66,000 public transit buses are carrying just a small fraction of their former ridership. Jarrett Walker writes incisively of the role public transit plays in holding civilization together, regardless of low ridership. His insights are equally true for school buses, not just because of the crucial deliveries I mentioned, but because almost half of our nation’s children wouldn’t be able to steadily access education without school buses. Let’s remember that bus organizations aren’t businesses, nor profit centers. Rather, like clean water, firefighters and the justice system, buses give us a society worth living in.
But isn’t basic bus service hard enough in the COVID context, without the added work and complexity of electric buses? For many, yes, and I offer my praise and not one jot of criticism to all bus personnel at all levels who are working – or unfortunately laid off – right now. At the same time, I’ll offer two additional things here: news of hundreds of people pressing forward to learn about electric school buses (ESB’s), and news of ESB projects moving forward as we speak.
About 400 people, including many reading these words, are registered for the Electric School Bus webinar tomorrow Thursday May 7, 11 am EST, 2 pm PST. Our topic this time is charging infrastructure. If you’ve opened this more promptly than I’ve written it, you can possibly still register here. As Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) notes, this webinar series is a joint effort between CTE and this Electric Bus newsletter written by Alison Wiley (that’s me; while I do some paid work for CTE, this newsletter is my own volunteer effort). This summer, probably also with CTE, I plan to start a monthly discussion forum for the fleet managers of ESB’s, to support their learning and success.
Michigan is moving forward with ESB’s. I talked this week with David Meeuswen the Executive Director of Michigan Association for Pupil Transportation. He reports 11 ESB’s spread across five districts as of December 2019. “It’s gone extremely well.” He’s expecting six more ESB’s to arrive in September. Minnesota, another state that impresses me with its frigid-weather resilience, is likewise moving forward. So is the state of Washington, which recently announced that 22 school districts are now getting underway with ESB projects, including in the remote, heart-stoppingly gorgeous San Juan Islands (I’ve been camping there; highly recommended!). All the above are funded with Volkswagen mitigation money, and doesn’t include many already existing ESB deployments in various states. COVID 19 might slow VW funded projects down, but doesn’t keep them from happening.
Outside of California, where the air quality districts continue to fund ESB projects, utilities are the usual ESB project funders other than Volkswagen sources. (In most funding scenarios, school districts typically contribute the amount they’d have paid for a new diesel bus.) Portland General Electric has selected four school districts to be the recipients of its ESB grants, but understandably is letting those school districts announce their news on their own timelines. Pacific Power plans to announce a grant program in a month or so for which ESB’s will be eligible.
Are electric buses complex, hard to fund and deploy? Yes; true pre-COVID, and true now. Should everyone attempt them? Not by a long shot; cover all your basics first. Are electric buses still viable in the COVID 19 era? My answer, and the answer I see coming from many others: hell, yes. In my next issue I’ll give a burning answer to the burning question of: why bother?
*I define the bus world as buses that serve public purposes (I don’t address tour coaches, for example). I focus largely these days on electric school buses, because I like kids and I like building new programs – ESB’s are new, just on the road since 2016, about seven years behind the U.S.’s first battery electric public transit buses.
Most of the 480,000 school buses in the U.S. have been sitting idle since mid-March when schools closed and moved to online learning, which puts low-income children at sharp disadvantage, despite educators’ best efforts. A small percentage of yellow buses are delivering meals and other crucial items to students – I observed that happening here in my neighborhood as I wrote this.
And most of the United States’ 66,000 public transit buses are carrying just a small fraction of their former ridership. Jarrett Walker writes incisively of the role public transit plays in holding civilization together, regardless of low ridership. His insights are equally true for school buses, not just because of the crucial deliveries I mentioned, but because almost half of our nation’s children wouldn’t be able to steadily access education without school buses. Let’s remember that bus organizations aren’t businesses, nor profit centers. Rather, like clean water, firefighters and the justice system, buses give us a society worth living in.
But isn’t basic bus service hard enough in the COVID context, without the added work and complexity of electric buses? For many, yes, and I offer my praise and not one jot of criticism to all bus personnel at all levels who are working – or unfortunately laid off – right now. At the same time, I’ll offer two additional things here: news of hundreds of people pressing forward to learn about electric school buses (ESB’s), and news of ESB projects moving forward as we speak.
About 400 people, including many reading these words, are registered for the Electric School Bus webinar tomorrow Thursday May 7, 11 am EST, 2 pm PST. Our topic this time is charging infrastructure. If you’ve opened this more promptly than I’ve written it, you can possibly still register here. As Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) notes, this webinar series is a joint effort between CTE and this Electric Bus newsletter written by Alison Wiley (that’s me; while I do some paid work for CTE, this newsletter is my own volunteer effort). This summer, probably also with CTE, I plan to start a monthly discussion forum for the fleet managers of ESB’s, to support their learning and success.
Michigan is moving forward with ESB’s. I talked this week with David Meeuswen the Executive Director of Michigan Association for Pupil Transportation. He reports 11 ESB’s spread across five districts as of December 2019. “It’s gone extremely well.” He’s expecting six more ESB’s to arrive in September. Minnesota, another state that impresses me with its frigid-weather resilience, is likewise moving forward. So is the state of Washington, which recently announced that 22 school districts are now getting underway with ESB projects, including in the remote, heart-stoppingly gorgeous San Juan Islands (I’ve been camping there; highly recommended!). All the above are funded with Volkswagen mitigation money, and doesn’t include many already existing ESB deployments in various states. COVID 19 might slow VW funded projects down, but doesn’t keep them from happening.
Outside of California, where the air quality districts continue to fund ESB projects, utilities are the usual ESB project funders other than Volkswagen sources. (In most funding scenarios, school districts typically contribute the amount they’d have paid for a new diesel bus.) Portland General Electric has selected four school districts to be the recipients of its ESB grants, but understandably is letting those school districts announce their news on their own timelines. Pacific Power plans to announce a grant program in a month or so for which ESB’s will be eligible.
Are electric buses complex, hard to fund and deploy? Yes; true pre-COVID, and true now. Should everyone attempt them? Not by a long shot; cover all your basics first. Are electric buses still viable in the COVID 19 era? My answer, and the answer I see coming from many others: hell, yes. In my next issue I’ll give a burning answer to the burning question of: why bother?
*I define the bus world as buses that serve public purposes (I don’t address tour coaches, for example). I focus largely these days on electric school buses, because I like kids and I like building new programs – ESB’s are new, just on the road since 2016, about seven years behind the U.S.’s first battery electric public transit buses.
Alison Wiley (she/her/hers)
I am on the ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Chinook and Cowlitz peoples.Whose land are you on?