... alongside two recent electric additions to the state's bus fleet.
Thomas Breen photos
U.S. Sen. Murphy (right) with bus drivers Jermaine and Sylvia...
Twenty-two new electric buses should hit the streets of New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport, Waterbury, and Stamford over the next year and a half, thanks in part to a newly awarded $11.4 million federal grant to help the state transportation department wean itself off of fossil fuels.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and state Department of Transportation (DOT) Public Transportation Bureau Chief Rich Andreski announced that news Friday morning during a bus stop-adjacent press conference held on Temple Street on the Green.
Standing alongside two recent battery-powered additions to the state public transit fleet, Andreski and Murphy said that Connecticut has received a $11.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration’s Buses and Bus Facilities Program.
That federal aid will help the state purchase 22 new battery electric buses, which will replace 22 existing diesel-operated buses.
State public transit chief Rich Andreski and Murphy.
Andreski said the purchase-and-replacement project should cost $25.7 million in total. He said the new electric buses should be acquired and on the road in about 18 months, depending on “potentially elongated [production] lead times” resulting from a surge in federal investments in electric buses.
And he said that this latest acquisition will bring the total number of electric buses in CT DOT’s fleet to 32; eight have already been delivered and are on the road, four more should be delivered in the next few months, and the new 22 should be operational in a year and a half.
The CT DOT fleet includes roughly 800 buses in total.
These electric buses are “more than 80 percent more efficient in terms of powertrain, production, life-cycle maintenance, and fuel consumption” than diesel buses, Andreski said.
Murphy and city staffer Ray Willis talk multi-modal transit in New Haven.
“These are clean buses,” added Murphy.
He said that transportation-related emissions represent the largest contributor to manmade climate change. Part of the state and federal government’s commitment to curbing those emissions, he said, is by replacing polluting diesel buses with electric ones.
“These buses are also more reliable than diesel buses. They break down less frequently,” Murphy said.
Reflecting on how gas prices are eclipsing $4 per gallon, in large part thanks to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, Murphy said that “electric buses in the long run are cheaper. These buses aren’t held hostage by the price of gasoline.”
With wind turbines slated to be built in the Long Island Sound, Murphy said, Connecticut and the region have the power to help “get this American economy off of foreign oil” and the resulting price volatility at the gas pump.
“It could be Connecticut-produced energy that powers our bus fleet five to 10 years from now.” That would be more reliable, more efficient, and more secure than relying on Russia-produced oil, he said.
Andreski added that the purchase price of an electric bus is around $950,000 to $1 million. That’s in comparison to the roughly $650,000 cost of a diesel-hybrid bus.
“But that’s only acquisition,” he said. “That doesn’t factor in fuel cost and life-cycle maintenance.”
The expected lifespan of an electric bus is roughly the same as a diesel-powered bus, Andreski said, which is around 12 years.
Move New Haven Sputters
Andreski: State will hire engineering consultant sometime this year.
After the presser, the Independent asked Andreski for an update on the recommendations included in the state-funded, decade-in-the-making Move New Haven transit study.
Those recommendations include consolidating bus stops; building out a local Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system with new express routes along Grand, Dixwell, Whalley, and Congress Avenues; building new mini-hub stations in Fair Haven, Dixwell, and Westville; adding dedicated “bus only” lanes; and transit signal priority upgrades to traffic signals.
The backers of that plan — which included the Greater New Haven Transit District, the state DOT, the Federal Transit Administration, and the City of New Haven — wrapped that study up in September 2019. It’s been mired in delays ever since.
These two and a half years later since the final report was published … what’s going on?
Andreski said the state — which took over the Move New Haven plan from the Greater New Haven Transit District — has been meeting with the city engineer and his team to talk about how the state and the city are going to partner on making some of these recommendations a reality.
“The issue is: This is not like CTfastrack, where we built it in an existing rail right-of-way” that was owned by the state, controlled by the state, and the construction could take place away from city streets and neighborhoods.
“This is a different program,” he said. These various traffic signal updates and “queue jump” lanes and newly built out bus hubs will take place on city streets and in city neighborhoods.
He said the state plans to retain an engineering consultant at some point this year to help the state work with the city to “develop the scope” for what comes next.
Real-time bus info sign on Chapel St.
In terms of upgrades to the New Haven bus system that actually have happened recently, Andreski said, the state did successfully extend bus service until 1 a.m.
The state also recently installed two new digital signs with real-time information on when a bus will get to a stop. One of those signs is on Chapel Street between Temple and Church, the other is on Broadway.