While efforts to transition bus fleets from diesel to electric have slowed, transportation officials this week said they will continue to move forward with a zero-emission transition study next year.
Last year, transportation officials with the Town of Ocean City began exploring the transition from diesel buses to electric after a state committee recommended local transit systems make the switch. Seeing a potential mandate on the horizon, the town began pursuing a transition study, which would set Ocean City up to receive state and federal grants to convert its fleet.
Since that time, however, local transit systems have pushed back against the electrification initiatives, arguing the transition would be too costly. But Transit Manager Rob Shearman told members of the town’s transportation committee Tuesday that the town would proceed with its study – a $149,000 project that will be largely funded with state and federal money.
“There was a brief period a year or so ago that we felt that the state was imminently going to mandate that across local systems,” he said of the conversion. “That’s kind of been rolled back due to the massive expense of it. But we are proceeding with the zero-emission transition plan study, which is something that would be mandatory for us to do before we were to use state and federal grant funding to purchase anything in terms of electric buses.”
Shearman said the study could begin as early as next summer.
“It makes sense to hold off until then anyway because that’s when the bulk of our operation is,” he told the committee. “So to give them a better snapshot of what exactly our parameters are and our potential operating electrical loads would be, the timing works out.”
No, a gross waste of money. Electric buses have been proven yo be failures in other cities. Can’t we learn from other cities mistakes?
Sad really. Rickie is out in 2yrs and doesn’t care. Spend spend spend.