PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA says even though it’s facing a fiscal cliff, it’s not curtailing its sustainability efforts.
The transit agency is looking at ways to reduce its carbon footprint even amid the prospect of drastically cutting service without more state funding.
“Right now we’re moving full speed ahead,” Emily Yates, SEPTA’s deputy chief planning officer for innovation, told KYW Newsradio at an Earth Day event Monday at SEPTA headquarters. “We see sustainability as a cost-saving measure. We save energy, we save money.”
SEPTA retired its last all-diesel bus a year ago. Its 1,400-vehicle bus fleet is nearly all hybrid.
“We’re looking at how can we move forward given those fiscal constraints in transitioning our zero-emission vehicles,” Yates said. “So we’re still committed to a zero-emission fleet, we’re just trying to figure out what that looks like in this new world,” Yates said. “We’re trying to understand what the true costs are of battery electric versus fuel cell and how that kind of plays out financially.”
Ten hydrogen fuel-cell-powered buses are currently being tested, Yates said, with plans to put them into revenue service in the coming months. The transit agency is also exploring retrofitting 12 hybrid diesel buses to battery electric-powered vehicles.
“We’re just doing it with the existing budget that we have. We’re not expecting any funding from the federal government,” Yates said. “However, the federal government is interested in this as a solution for zero-emission buses.”