GoRaleigh and their elusive electric buses

To be truly useful, transit needs to be frequent, reliable, clean and safe. You could offer an excellent transit system using today’s boring, ‘unsexy’ buses if the key corridors ran every 15 minutes or less and people could just show up at the stop and ride, instead of being forced to consult a schedule and worry that they may miss their once-an-hour connecting bus.

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Guadalajara had a pretty extensive electric bus system (overhead wires) that when it reach downtown goes underground and operated like a subway. That was very efficient, and well used.

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Great first post @jdevlin12. The idea that transit needs to be “sexy” is very American and very flawed. It’s why we spend comical amounts of money on beautiful new stations that sit empty. American politicians prefer ribbon-cuttings and press-ops over frequent bus service.

Other countries understand that the most popular transit services are fast, frequent, and reliable. Sexy is moot if it doesn’t work.

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I never said buses are not sexy I said be sexy while providing those benefits like frequent, reliable, clean and safe service. And using todays sexy buses like that picture above me.

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its not flawed its profit lt’s just has to be done right. That why they it empty.

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That sexy transit, it’s has to be sexy!!!

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Is this one of the electric buses?

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That’s the new BRT line.

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Seriously what the hell is this

the new GO-Tricycle service.

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Caught a wild one on Hillsborough St!

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I wonder how they’re holding up and what the consensus is with fleet management. I’d love for all routes that fit into the range model move to electric by 202X. :heart_eyes:

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Appropriate:

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The way they worded this, it sounds as if the buses went missing somehow and they can’t find them. :face_with_monocle:

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Tomorrow, GoRaleigh’s board is expected to meet and go over the final draft of their zero-emissions transitions plan! This plan is required by federal law so that GoTriangle is eligible for certain types of new bus grants.

This study looked at how much change in carbon dioxide emissions we’d have in the air we breathe (and what that would cost) based on if we maintain our current bus fleet, go all-in on natural gas-powered buses, versus fully replacing our buses with electric buses when possible. The report looked at the tailpipe emission (how much CO2 comes out of buses’ tail pipes) as well as how much emissions come out of the electrical grid (because it’s not as worth it for the environment if “clean” batter buses are charged by burning coal, for example).

Interestingly, this means that even though it would take longer to replace electric buses because they’re more expensive, it’s still over $20 million cheaper for our city to replace our diesel and CNG buses with electric ones over time. That also puts GoRaleigh on a trajectory to become fully zero-emission by 2050!

Here’s how the average total emission (again, “total” as in including those from the electrical grid) per-bus, laid out over time for the three scenarios in this study. You’ll see that the renewable natural gas (RNG)-focused and electric-focused scenarios aren’t any different until 2030. This is because the current Wake Co. Transit Plan already sets assumptions for how many buses of each type will be bought; the two plans won’t have time to diverge until after that point in time.

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I’m just going to drop this here:

https://twitter.com/aldatweets/status/1617918544712462337?s=46&t=OjTjHAGL1PBv-B5f3fOHAg

i rode transit for a few decades. i admit diesel exhaust at moore square, a contained parking lot, could be unpleasant at times. i rode an electric bus in reno on a number of trips and it was not that much of a different experience riding experience but didn’t stink… if cost is a concern maybe keep a mixed fleet…electric busses in the tight area of moore square and if deisel busses are in some way cheaper on other routes or regional types routes, then keep them. i have seen articles on the polluting nature and battery disposal issues of larger amounts of lithium, but I’m nut sure of their accuracy. my ebike gets 1800 cold charges (charges from zero charge) after that its near spent and requires special disposal (ie more costly).

Omg finally saw my unicorn in its natural habitat!

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