Federal grant awarded to Santa Rosa will fund 6 new all-electric buses

Santa Rosa officials predict the city’s transit system — expected to provide more than 1.3 million fixed route trips this year — will be fully electric by 2037, three years ahead of the state’s mandatory deadline.

A $9.9 million federal grant received by the city this week will go a long way to help reach this goal and allow the city to purchase six new all-electric buses, in addition to expanding its charging infrastructure.

With a 20% match from the city, the grant money will mean CityBus, the city’s transit network, will have 21 zero-emission, electric coaches on the road by 2027, according to Rachel Ede, deputy director of transportation and public works over the Santa Rosa Transit Division.

All but eight of its 29 regular coaches will be electric powered at that point — all of them charged through Sonoma Clean Power’s EverGreen service, which provides 100% local, renewable geothermal and solar power to enrolled customers, Ede said. The older buses are diesel-fueled.

The plan is to have all of them run on battery power by 2035, with paratransit buses upgraded to electric by 2037.

“It’s a pretty aggressive schedule, and hopefully we’ll be able to achieve that,” she said, “but sometimes there’s a little wiggle room, depending on the manufacturer and where you fit in the build schedule.”

The electric bus market is a competitive one, with transit agencies around the country seeking to lower fuel emissions — especially in California.

In a first of its kind decision, the California Air Resources Board in 2018 directed all state transit agencies to begin transitioning to zero-emission fleets by 2026 to reduce overall impacts from the transportation sector. That accounts for 40% of climate-changing gas emissions and up to 90% of smog-forming pollutants, the board said.

The Air Resources Board also instructed each agency to make the full transition to zero-emission buses by 2040, without retiring older buses before the expiration of what’s considered a 12-year useful life.

A series of benchmarks along the way are to ensure each was making progress toward that goal.

Smaller agencies like those of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County are required to submit plans by July 1 detailing how they’ll get there. Sonoma County has filed its plan, and the Santa Rosa City Council approved its June 6. (Larger agencies had to file theirs three years ago.)

Sonoma County, with 49 coaches total, aims to meet the goal by 2035, replacing buses that run on compressed natural gas.

It put its first battery electric bus in service in 2018 and now has six on the road, including three new ones launched last week, Transit Systems Manager Bryan Albee said.

Thirteen more on order should be in operation around July or August 2024, he said.

“Electrification of the county’s transit fleet will continue to be a top priority, consistent with the Climate Action and Resiliency pillar of Sonoma County’s Strategic Plan,” Supervisor Chris Coursey said in a news release.

“But with 40 percent of local transit passengers representing disadvantaged groups and 40 percent of routes serving underprivileged communities, this plan also reinforces the county’s work toward healthy and safe communities, organizational excellence, resilient infrastructure and social justice.”

The grants awarded Monday were issued through two grant programs run by the Federal Transit Agency — one for low- and no-emission buses and the other for buses and bus facilities. The funding can only be used for buses manufactured using American parts and labor.

More than $184 million was awarded to 14 California transit agencies, funding mostly battery electric buses and a few hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, as well as compressed natural gas buses in a couple of cases, in addition to infrastructure.

The Marin County Transit District was among the winners, receiving a $31.5 million grant to build an electric bus facility, expand the infrastructure needed for zero-emission flee and initiate a workforce training program.

Sonoma County also applied for funding but learned Monday it was not on the list of recipients this year, Albee said.

In a news release on the grants, Rep. Mike Thompson’s office said there “were five times as many requests for funding than was available.”

“There’s a lot of competition for the funds,” Albee said. “The low/no (emission) grant is an annual program. We’ll apply next year, and hopefully we’ll be successful.”

The county had hoped to order 21 new electric buses and chargers to power them up with the grant, he said.

“There were more way more applications and requests for funds than were available, and that’s just the name of the game,” Albee said. “Everyone is requesting these funds, and some years you get it and sometimes you don’t.”

Santa Rosa already has four electric buses, all put into service earlier this year, Ede said.

Five more coaches on order should be in operation by mid- to late 2024, she said. Another six are to be purchased next year and put on the road in 2025.

The new award would allow for the purchase of six more, plus five dual-point chargers, each allowing CityBus to charge two buses at a time.

“I’m really excited,” Ede said. “This is a major award.“

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $5.5 billion through 2026 for the Low- and No-Emission Vehicle Program, more than six times greater than the previous five years of funding combined, legislators said. The act also provides nearly $2 billion through 2026 for the Buses and Bus Facilities Program.

Santa Rosa’s award comes as the city is still rebuilding bus service and passenger demand after shrinking usage during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ede said ridership finally reached 80% of pre-pandemic levels last month. CityBus also has restored service levels to 80% of where they stood in early 2020, but still needs to hire additional bus operators to get the rest of the way there.

At this point, a few routes are running every hour instead of every 30 minutes, however.

“We’re really anxious to get that service back,” Ede said. “We just need to make sure we have enough people to operate them.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.