NEW HANOVER COUNTY—In the next two years, diesel buses may become an obsolete form of public transportation in southeastern North Carolina.
The area’s public transportation authority has been transitioning away from diesel vehicles toward buses fueled by compressed natural gas since 2015.
After receiving $3.6 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration(FTA) last Thursday, WAVE Transit has announced it will purchase nine new buses to replace its declining diesel buses.
CNG vs. diesel
Albert Eby, director of WAVE Transit, said that above all, the switch takes clunkers out of rotation.
“It takes a dirty old diesel bus off the road,” Eby said.
The transition to leave diesel behind has been in the works for several years. In 2012, WAVE Transit released a compressed natural gas(CNG) fuel evaluation. The evaluation coincided with the Authority’s need to upgrade its infrastructure and vehicle inventory. It served as a basis for the shift toward CNG.
“We determined that switching over to CNG was viable at the time,” Eby said.
By 2015, WAVE Transit had purchased its first two CNG buses. With nine more CNG buses now on the way, Eby hopes diesel vehicles will be taken out of the public transportation rotation by 2020.
“Our goal right now is to work toward 100 percent natural gas,” Eby said.
Though CNG buses are more costly upfront — about $500,000 — Eby said economic and environmental savings can be felt in the long-run.
For now, WAVE Transit heavily relies on federal funding to pick up capital costs required to make the transition.
CNG requires plenty of energy to compress the gas to be used by vehicles. There are initial electric, maintenance and infrastructure costs associated with the switch.
Still, when weighed over buses that rely on diesel fuel, Eby believes CNG comes out on top.
“It’s more economical and certainly more efficient,” Eby said.
Road to fund
Typically, the federal government has supported WAVE Transit operating costs at a rate of 80 percent. Eby said that in recent years, federal funding has been cut back significantly.
“There’s a lot of competition for those funds,” Eby said. “The need is out there, it’s great across the country.”
Out of the $2 billion in funding requests received, FTA granted about 13 percent. Included in that funding was WAVE Transit’s $3.6 million.
“The fact that we were able to get funded, it was a pleasant surprise,” Eby said. WAVE Transit was competing against much larger metropolitan areas and completed its grant writing in-house.
With significant capital funding required to purchase new CNG buses and update infrastructure to compress natural gas, public transportation systems must compete to cover costs.
“We still need to find funding,” Eby said. “The biggest challenge we have is finding funding to replace the vehicles.”
At this time, WAVE Transit has not announced additional routes or hours to coincide with new buses. According to the announcement, the new buses will be utilized to replace aging vehicles in the fixed route fleet and the Downtown Trolley initiative.
Johanna Ferebee can be reached at johanna@localvoicemedia.com or @j__ferebee on Twitter
