Details demanded about the MTA’s switch to electric buses
An MTA electric bus is parked on Water Street. (New York Daily News)
Transit and environmental advocates called on the MTA Thursday to release a detailed timeline for its plan to convert its bus fleet to fully electric vehicles.
The agency has vowed to make its entire bus fleet fully electric by 2040.
The Metropolitan Transportation agency has less than 10 electric buses in service, all of which operate out of Brooklyn’s Grand Ave. bus depot, the only one equipped with necessary charging infrastructure.
MTA officials plan to roll out another 65 fully electric buses by the end of the year, and another 500 over the next five years.
But with 5,700 buses in its fleet, the agency has a lot of work to do in order to make its on-street network fully electric over the next two decades.
Even more than simply buying new buses, the MTA will also need to install charging stations both at its depots and on the streets, which could lead to run-ins with community groups that are adverse to more equipment coming to their neighborhoods.
“I think New Yorkers are actually going to want charging stations on their corners,” said Tri-State Transportation Campaign Executive Director Nick Sifuentes. “If we make sure that charging stations are not just accessible to buses, but to average electric vehicles as well, we might actually see them be incredibly popular.”
Sifuentes also pointed out the MTA buys about 10% of all the buses sold in North America every year, and converting to a fully electric fleet may prompt other cities to do the same.
Still, advocates say the push for electric buses is as much a social justice issue as it is an environmental one.
“We know that in New York City that over 70% of all bus depots are in communities of color,” said NYC Environmental Justice Alliance Executive Director Eddie Bautista. “Electrification is about climate justice, and climate justice is about racial justice.”