By Pepper Parr
June 9th 2022
BURLINGTON, ON
A graphic of a bus at a charging station. Transit people are working on a pilot to test something like this in Burlington.
It isn’t totally official, which means the Communications people haven’t gotten the memo yet, but it looks like Burlington is going to have a four electric bus pilot, as early as 2024.
The pilot will be done with CUTRIC, an organization with some of the brightest people working on turning diesel buses into electrical.
That is good news.
Two big questions emerge: Is this better for the environment than running the old buses to end of their useful life before replacement? and.. Should we be deploying massive batteries on new municipally funded rolling stock across our fleet with no insight or discussion about their sourcing, production and transport to our locality?
Feeling good and being good are different things.
Hate to pop your bubble, but CUTRIC is a group of wackjobs! Maybe do a little research.
Editor’s note: In a follow up note Bill said: “I won’t get into details, but I’ve worked with CUTRIC on 3 different occasions throughout my career and in my opinion they are not “the brightest people”
The city will get 4 electric buses. My question – Will the city have the infrastructure and the necessary expertise in housing and maintaining these buses by 2024?
I know we have to start somewhere, and this is a good beginning.