Federal and state grant support is moving diesel buses off LA streets
LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles County residents will be breathing easier thanks to grant funding that will transform its public transit. A $10.5 million federal Department of Transportation grant will pay for the purchase of 30 near-zero emission compressed natural gas buses, while a $1.875 million grant from the Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Committee will be used to install new near-zero CNG engines in 125 existing buses. The federal grant will also pay for refueling facilities and a workplace development program.
Since the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (referred to as Metro) made a commitment to purchase only CNG buses beginning in 1992, that leaves just 66 of the county’s 2,500-bus fleet operating on diesel. However, those buses will also soon be replaced with CNG vehicles, too. Metro is matching the federal grant as an investment to replace aging diesel buses that operate on seven bus lines.
Metro’s new buses will operate in the South Bay and Gateway Cities region, areas that suffer from stubbornly poor air quality resulting in part from the heavy truck traffic traveling in and out of port areas.
The near-zero CNG engines being installed in 125 existing buses already powered by CNG are built by Cummins Westport and have emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter that are 90 percent lower than current federal standards. They are 1,000 times cleaner than the diesel buses Metro operated during the 1980s and 1990s and are projected to reduce emissions by 25 percent more than even Metro’s 2014 CNG vehicles.
With Metro’s fleet traveling more than 85 million miles a year, CNG buses are also more economical to operate, saving Metro an average 47 cents per mile.
“Metro is already the nation’s leading operator of clean CNG buses, but this new funding will help us expedite the replacement of the small number of diesel buses that are still in our contracted service fleets,” said Philip A. Washington, Metro’s CEO. “We are now one step closer to completely eradicating diesel buses of any kind from the streets of Los Angeles County.”