Winnipeg Transit unveils first zero-emission fuel-cell bus
But while the city expects to receive dozens more zero-emission buses over the next few years, supply chain issues, budget pressures and looming tariff threats have thrown the city's plans to phase out its diesel fleet into doubt.
Erin Cooke, manager of Transit's transition to zero-emission bus program, says the city will test two types of buses — hydrogen fuel cell and battery electric — in 40-foot and 60-foot sizes.
The fuel cell bus the city received is the third such vehicle in service in Canada, Cooke said.
"So we're cutting-edge right now, when it comes to technology, for testing this out," Cooke told reporters during a news conference at Transit's Osborne Street garage.
"We do have other zero-emission buses that will be arriving this year, which will include the first 60-foot [electric] buses in Canada, as well as battery electric buses as well."
The buses include a mix of fuel cell electric, which charge with hydrogen, and battery electric, which can be plugged into a charger.
With $280 million from all three levels of government through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program, the city expects to purchase a total of 90 zero-emission buses, including 70 battery electric and 20 fuel cell vehicles.
Half of the 16 buses expected this year will be fuel cell, and the other half will be battery electric. Half will be 40 feet in length, and the other half will be 60 feet. The city expects to receive another 24 zero-emission buses next year.
A 40-foot battery electric bus costs around $1.56 million, while a fuel cell bus costs about $1.9 million. A diesel bus costs approximately $900,000.
Hydrogen buses can run for 24 hours, while battery electric buses can run for 10 to 15 hours.
Fuel cell buses are entirely zero-emission, while battery-electric buses must include a small diesel generator to heat the battery in cold weather.
The city participated in a pilot project to test four zero-emission buses from 2015 to 2018.
Zero-emission plans scaled back
The city has already scaled back its plans to purchase more zero-emission buses. It had planned to buy 100 buses with the funding from ICIP, but had to reduce its orders due to supply chain issues and cost pressures.
The 2025 budget includes a directive to resume purchasing diesel buses in 2027.
Public works chair Coun. Janice Lukes isn't sure the city will meet its goal of an all-electric fleet by 2045.
"The city would love to have all electric buses, but unfortunately unless we have other level of government support, we won't be able to afford them," she said.
Cooke says the city could still meet the target.
"As long as we make choices sort of in the 2032 timeline … that target's is still totally achievable," she said.
Josipa Petrunic with the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium says looming tariffs on U.S. imports from Canada could cut the number of electric buses the city can afford even further.
"Buses get more expensive, and all of a sudden the city that has so much money can buy many fewer buses from what it planned," Petrunic said.
There are currently 632 buses in the city's fleet.
The city says the new buses will begin limited service in April, after the spring schedule change.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fast Company
a day ago
- Fast Company
Here's what happened when Albuquerque made riding the bus free
Sabina Wohlmuth's days used to include long, hot walks across the city of Albuquerque, sometimes 2 or 3 miles at a time. Wohlmuth relies on the bus, but when she was short on cash, she walked instead of paying the fare. 'It was only a dollar for a one-way trip, but still, if you're homeless and you're poor that's a lot of money,' Wohlmuth says. Wohlmuth now takes the bus every day, to her job at McDonald's, to the store, and to the sober living facility where she stays. And each of those bus trips costs Wohlmuth zero dollars. Albuquerque made zero-fare transit permanent in November 2023, becoming one of the largest U.S. cities to implement zero-fare transit. About a year and a half later, transit officials and advocates say the zero-fare program is working as intended, by serving the city's lowest-income residents. As some other midsize cities walk back their plans to make transit free, in Albuquerque the program is sticking around. 'This is a public service, and the people we serve really rely on it,' says Leslie Keener, director of the City of Albuquerque's transit department. 'I think it's a way to really just open up access and create mobility so that people have the opportunity to have some upward movement.' Mobility for survival Nearly 90% of Albuquerque's bus riders have household incomes of less than $35,000 per year, and a similar percentage don't have access to a vehicle. Making it easier for the city's lowest-income residents to get around is part of what Christopher Ramirez calls 'the first purpose of public transit.' 'Transit equity is giving the people that are most in need the resources, and then build out' other aspects of public transit, such as routes and frequency, says Ramirez, the cofounder and executive director of Together for Brothers. In 2017, the organization conducted a community health impact assessment that led to a focus on transit equity advocacy. Since 2019, the community organization has led a coalition to push for free transit in Albuquerque. Many bus riders in Albuquerque are experiencing homelessness, and rely on the bus to get to medical appointments, social service providers, work, and to visit friends and family. Charles Battiste says he takes the bus every day. On a Wednesday in February, Battiste was riding the bus west on Central Avenue, the city's main thoroughfare, from a methadone treatment program to a hotel where he'd recently secured temporary housing on the other side of town. Q, a 32-year-old who has been unhoused since they were 18, also rode the bus down Central Avenue that day in the opposite direction, to pick up some cough medicine at a hospital. Like Battiste, Q relies on the bus on a daily basis. 'Transportation comes up frequently as one of the top barriers for our clients and those we serve in accessing healthcare, jobs, housing, all of the things that we know are the structural solutions to homelessness,' says Rachel Biggs, chief strategy officer at Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless. 'We know people in Albuquerque are stretched really thin, even the folks who aren't already . . . experiencing homelessness. The numbers of people living in poverty and who need transportation support just continue to grow, and we have a lot of transit-dependent residents.' Biggs says her organization previously spent about $50,000 per year purchasing bus passes for clients so they could make appointments, look for housing, and get to work. This created a 'really cumbersome system' that involved clients shuttling from the city's shelter on the far west side of town to Health Care for the Homeless's office early in the morning to pick up a free daily bus pass, then 'turning around and getting back on the bus' to reach their destinations for the day. Monthly passes were less feasible because of the frequency that people experiencing homelessness lost their passes amid encampment sweeps, Biggs says. 'Especially when you're experiencing homelessness, time is a very valuable resource,' she says. 'So to be able to get around town and not have to go through all the hoop-jumping, so that you can now hop on and hop off, it does increase access to all the services and all the things that someone would need to end their homelessness.' For other Albuquerque residents, free public transit serves as a lifeline, a vital mobility option when money is tight or other transportation falls through. One 67-year-old woman found herself on the bus after her car was repossessed due to difficulties making ends meet recently. 'It's nice to have something that's free, when you've always driven, you've always paid insurance, and you pay for almost everything,' she says. Erica Grier, who works as a part-time caregiver and uses a Section 8 voucher to afford housing, uses the bus every day. She estimates that she previously spent at least $20 per month on the bus, money that's now back in her pocket to pay for groceries and other monthly expenses. 'It's a good service that the city provides, just like how the library is free,' she says. advertisement Keener says the city has seen ridership shift since the pandemic launched a new era of remote work and Albuquerque launched free transit: fewer commuters, and more people experiencing homelessness who can now more easily use the bus to reach their destinations or who are using it as shelter from the elements. Recovering ridership Ridership has steadily increased since Albuquerque first piloted zero fares in 2022, with overall ridership up 20% in the past three years. City officials credit the zero-fare program with helping ABQ Ride's ridership numbers creep back up toward pre-pandemic levels. Like Albuquerque, Kansas City, Missouri, made headlines when it became the first major U.S. city to go fare-free in 2020. But five years later, the Kansas City Council voted to bring back $2 fares in an attempt to stave off major service cuts amid a budget shortfall. But for now, at least, it seems like Albuquerque's free fares are sticking around. Fare revenue previously 'wasn't much of anything,' according to Keener, and brought in about $3 million in revenue before the cost of collecting fare was deducted. That represented a drop in the bucket for the transit agency's $67 million annual budget, comprised of about $23 million from the city's transportation infrastructure tax and about $8 million from the county and other regional government entities. The rest of the budget is subsidized from the city's General Fund to the tune of about $30 million each year. The city's recently approved budget for fiscal year 2026 kept this subsidy, and the city 'stands behind its zero-fares system,' Keener says, adding that the agency's focus right now is on expanding routes and increasing service frequency. ABQ Ride served 7 million riders in 2024, which is about 78% of the agency's pre-pandemic ridership numbers—but ABQ Ride is also operating at only 64% of its pre-pandemic service, with reduced frequency on many routes and some headways of up to an hour. ABQ Ride is in the process of implementing a revamped 'recovery network' that aims to bring the agency back to about 95% of pre-pandemic service, according to Keener, since returning to 100% of service levels wouldn't be financially feasible. The proposed recovery network includes streamlining and restructuring some routes to offset costs of increasing frequency and evening and weekend service. The reconfiguring is expected to increase the number of residents within a half-mile of a route with frequent service. Ramirez views expanding frequency as the next step after making buses free. According to Ramirez, ABQ Ride has long tried to do 'a lot with a little,' with the recovery plan raising questions of whether the agency should focus on having as many routes as possible or improving service in high-passenger areas. 'We need more frequency in the places that need it most,' he says. 'The bus should be for everybody,' he adds. 'It should be to connect people who need it most to get where they need to go. It's people getting to schools, it's people getting to work, it's people getting outdoors, it's people getting food, it's people getting to healthcare.' This story was supported with grant funding from the Neal Peirce Foundation. This story was originally published by Next City, a nonprofit news outlet covering solutions for equitable cities. Sign up for Next City's newsletter for their latest articles and events.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Eglinton Crosstown LRT opening date 'very close,' says Toronto city manager
Toronto's city manager says the Eglinton Crosstown LRT opening date is very close and the transit project is in its final stages of testing. Paul Johnson told CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Tuesday that he's "blindly optimistic" that the long-delayed light rail transit will open soon. "It is very, very close. These are the last stages of really testing it," he said. The 25-stop line was initially set to open in 2020, but a series of technical problems and associated cost overruns have plagued the project and repeatedly delayed its completion. Construction on the line began in 2011. The transit line will open when it's "safe and operationally sound to do so" and testing has been going well, Johnson said on Tuesday. "It's going to open soon. Everybody's working towards that, and I know people want to know the actual date. The only thing holding back the date is, we also don't want this to be unreliable and be a very poor service when it goes in," said Johnson. He said staff have been running tests to make sure all trains have what they need to run daily. They are also checking the route timings and if all systems are working properly. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said last month that the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line was on track to open this September. September opening 'is a reach,' TTC interim CEO says At last week's TTC board meeting, outgoing TTC interim CEO Greg Percy was asked if the transit line was on track to open in September. "We're looking at still this fall to get something happening," answered Percy. "I think September is a reach, but this fall is plausible and certainly by year-end." WATCH | Percy talks about September opening date: TTC took control of the Eglinton Crosstown from Metrolinxlast month. Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay said at the time that the system and vehicles were being "relentlessly" stress tested. Percy said at Thursday's board meeting that the decision on the opening date still falls to Metrolinx. He said safety and customer experience are key issues, and that the TTC won't open it until "it is satisfying both."
Bloomberg
17-07-2025
- Bloomberg
CEO of Atlanta Transit System Steps Down After Delay in Getting Green Card
The head of the largest transit system in Atlanta is stepping down as a result of problems with his immigration status. Collie Greenwood, a Canadian who's chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, took early retirement after his work permit expired and he waited on a green card, according to a statement on Thursday from the agency.
