The city’s sole electric bus hasn’t seen the streets in more than one year.
It’s been in a parking lot within the Mendenhall Valley since November of 2022. Over the course of the past year, it’s been through many repairs, but it remains not operational.
Capital Transit Superintendent Rich Ross says that the bus’s issues have not been the best start of a new plan to electrify the Juneau the fleet of buses.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”Being early adopters of the latest technology We expected a few hiccups during the course of development,” he said. “We certainly didn’t anticipate to see them as this large a .”
The electric city bus in Juneau began to run on regular routes in spring 2021. It was seen as revolutionary because it was among the first city-owned and owned electric vehicles in the State. The bus cost around 1 million dollars, which included charging infrastructure, and was financed with federal transportation grants and the state settlement fund.
Ross claimed that the bus initially was shut down due to issues with the wiring harness. He claimed it took Southern California manufacturer, Proterra to wait until May of this year to locate the required repairs. However, once the repair was completed, another issue arose.
Its style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”We were testing the bus to test the repair and one transmission burst upon the road,” he said.
The replacement transmission wasn’t available until November. Ross explained that this was in part due to Proterra having to declare bankruptcy this summer, which slowed the process. He claimed that the issue with the transmission has been resolved however there is many other issues that keep it inactive during the winter. The repairs to the other parts are expected to take at most six months, and they have all been financed by Proterra.
Despite the difficulties regarding the bus seven electric buses are headed towards Juneau the following year. They’re manufactured by a different manufacturer, Gillig, which is the same manufacturer that is responsible for Capital Transit’s diesel-powered fleet. Ross added that this could result in less maintenance and more robust buses than the previous one – however, that’s not an assurance.
Ross stated that moving forward with the latest technology is always a challenge However, he believes that the benefits will far outweigh any difficulties that might be encountered.
“span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”It’ll significantly cut emissions” He said. “It’s an important one of goals of Assembly members to cut emissions, and one of the fruits that are low-hanging to achieve this is transportation .”
These new vehicles were bought through the Federal Transit Administration and were scheduled to arrive by the beginning of next summer. But, Ross claimed that construction dates for the buses was delayed, which means they won’t likely arrive at Juneau until the end of fall.
