The conversation about public transit that has generated the most oxygen has not been about whether its running effectively. Instead, at least one advocacy group has been very vocal in their demands that the City Council immediately phase out the purchase of diesel buses in favor of battery-electric vehicles.
On February 27, 2024, City Council had another work session on a recommendation from the firm Kimley Horn on how to proceed with transitioning Charlottesville Area Transit to fossil-free fuels. (view the presentation)
After a year of work, the consultant is recommending the purchase of two battery-electric vehicles this year as a pilot and to buy two hydrogen-fueled vehicles in 2027.
“That would give us two different pilots,” said CAT Director Garland Williams. “During the pilot we’re also looking at expansions of our fleet. Part of what we are trying to make sure that we do is provide adequate service for the community members who need our service, not just want our service.”
To assist with that expansion, diesel replacement vehicles would also be purchased with a goal of 2040 to be carbon free, ten years before the city’s deadline of 2050.
An advocacy group called C-Ville 100 has been demanding that the city purchase no more diesel vehicles and to buy battery-electric vehicles. Another group known as the Community Climate Collaborative has been advocating for that as well but has since come around to the phased approach.
As the director of the city’s Office of Sustainability, Kristel Riddervold is responsible for guiding Charlottesville to meet its greenhouse gas emission goals. She explained the purpose of the Kimley Horn study.
“What we’re talking about is a feasibility study of shifting a fossil fuel fleet,” Riddervold said. “It’s not an implementation plan and it is not a design plan. Those are critical, subsequent steps.”
Riddervold said the city’s climate action plan calls for more people to ride public transit rather than use their own vehicle. That’s been more difficult since the spring of 2020 when CAT began operating on reduced “Lifeline” service with reduced hours and no routes traveling on Sunday. Council was briefed on a realignment of bus routes in the spring of 2021, but that work has not yet been implemented pending additional drivers.
CAT is now seeking to move forward with those route changes, and it needs more vehicles to make it happen. The transition to a fully-functioning system would be more difficult if new buses are not reliable.
“There will be issues to work through before we have alternatively fueled buses on the road, but this is how we get started,” Riddervold said. (review Riddervold’s presentation)
Riddervold said her recommendation to Council is to proceed with the study because the sooner CAT is more reliable, the sooner ridership will begin to rebound. According to a report to the Federal Transit Administration, there were 2.4 million in “unlinked trips” in 2013, a ridership figure that dropped to 1.15 million in 2022.
“The proposed fleet expansion will allow CAT to provide improved transit frequency and reliability, addressing an important issue of transit equity,” Riddervold said. “The pilot approach will allow CAT maintenance staff to gain familiarity with two technologies prior to widespread adoption. The recommendation is leadership by example. We are encouraging our community to pursue fleet transition to cleaner fuel sources and need to do this ourselves.”
Council also heard from Ben Chambers, the city’s transportation planner. Chambers reminded Council about the plan developed in 2021 to get CAT out of the “lifeline” service. Chambers did not yet work for the city at that time, and Councilors Juandiego Wade, Natalie Oschrin, and Brian Pinkston were not yet in office.
“This fixed some of our routes, made them more direct, but it also added up some new service areas in the city and the county,” Chambers said. “It would have expanded Saturday service, returned some Sunday service, would have changed some transfer points in a few key areas around the system to make transfers less frequent and added a little bit of recovery time on the end of each route so our on-time performance for our routes would have improved.”
To read an account of that time, I have this article from May 2021 that went over the details. Chambers said the changes were not implemented due to a shortage of drivers, vehicles, and parts.
Around the same time, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission began work on its study of regional transit that culminated in the Regional Transit Vision Plan and the Regional Transit Governance Study. Chambers said these plans were more aspirational.
“Some of the recommendations from this study sort of live in a reality that it outside of what CAT currently exists with and we would have to restructure some routes very significantly with some of the recommendations that they came forward with,” Chambers said. “Things like making the trolley extend to Pantops would require further discussions between us and the county to make sure they actually want that service and would have the capability of funding that service.”
Meanwhile CAT is working on a transit strategic plan required by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation. More details will be revealed at another work session on April 16. In general, CAT wants to double the amount of service it offers in order to increase ridership. To do that, Chambers said there needs to be a reliable bus fleet and the DRPT needs to know how they’ll ensure one is in place.
City Councilor Natalie Oschrin said another tool at the city’s disposal is to make driving a less viable option.
“Like if we have dedicated bus lanes, then timing can be more accurate, and it’s also less handy to drive so people will choose buses,” Oschrin said. “There’s other external factors we can apply to make it less attractive to be in a car and more attractive to be in a bus.”
Council also heard from staff with Kimley Horn on specifications for the vehicles themselves.
“The average battery electric that was available in 2022 when we looked at this was about 150 to 350 mile range,” said Sam Sink. “Of course, this is significantly affected by external factors. Weather, ambient temperature, how the driver drives, bus occupancy, topography. All of these things can affect range.”
Sink said they also tend to be more expensive than diesel buses and they take time to recharge. That could mean a need to purchase more vehicles to ensure there are enough to deliver expanded service.
Hydrogen fuel cell buses would have a range closer to diesel fuels of between 260 and 350 miles.
“They’re less susceptible to range decreases in [battery electric vehicles],” Sink said. “Some models may experience weather-related degradation but certainly not to the extent of [battery-electric vehicles.]”
Sink said refueling would also be about the same as refueling for a diesel or compressed natural gas vehicle. However, these are more expensive than battery electric vehicles with a 2021 cost of $1.15 million.
Williams said the city would likely stop buying diesel buses after 2027 to meet the timeline to be fossil fuel by 2040. Proceeding with the recommendations would provide more information to guide future decision-making, beginning with the two battery-electric vehicles.
“We would purchase our first this year, battery-electric, the two,” Williams said. “As soon as we get those, assuming 18 to 24 months, we’d be able to have them in operation about two years, really get a test and feel for where we can use them.”
At the end of the presentation, Councilors had their thoughts. Councilor Brian Pinkston said he could understand staff’s concerns about the uncertainties of battery-electric vehicles at this point in the technology. But he reserved his concern for hydrogen fuel cells.
“I’m not a transit expert and can’t claim to be but as an engineer and as a project manager when I think about all these things, I just don’t think I trust hydrogen enough to go there,” Pinkston said.
Pinkston said there’s enough creativity in the community to pursue battery-electric vehicles and to deploy them on routes where they will be most effective, especially if fast-charging technology is pursued.
Williams said some of the advocates seeking to persuade Council have claimed that he is against any transition. He said he wants the system to work reliably.
“I have talked to my colleagues from California, to New York, to Illinois and they are all saying there are concerns about the range on battery-electric,” Williams said. “I am not saying not to do it. I believe that we should do a portion of our fleet with battery-electric.”
Williams said CAT has to perform better before an aggressive approach is taken to change the entire fleet type.
“Remember, we’re not buying hydrogen until 2027 so that gives us a couple of years to figure out some of the infrastructure components,” Williams said.
And if the city can’t find a source of hydrogen that doesn’t take a lot of emissions to produce, the city could decide not to proceed. Williams said giving him authorization to put this fuel source in the transit strategic plan would allow pursuit of funding for that option.
At the end of the presentation, City Manager Sam Sanders pressed Council for their direction despite a torrent of advocacy from people who have not been elected to make one.
“And you have a very big political decision to make and I think that’s why it has felt awkward and uncomfortable and it’s gotten a little more uncomfortable for me recently as folks have made comments that I’m even not supportive of battery electric buses or climate innovation as it relates to transportation and that’s not true,” Sanders said.
Sanders reminded Council that Williams had related the story of a transit system that is not working and more service is needed. He said sixty minute headways are not acceptable.
“It is hard to innovate when you are falling apart,” Sanders said.
To get to that decision, Sanders asked a direct question.
“Are you interested in hydrogen being a part of this scenario or not? Are you interested in leaving it in the mix for consideration or not?” Sanders asked.
Sanders said if Council opted to go solely with battery-electric buses, CAT would need to try out multiple types. If hydrogen were to be selected as an option, staff would need to do more research between now and 2027.
- City Councilor Lloyd Snook said he would be interested in furthering research into hydrogen but had concerns about whether there will be market for the fuel in 2027.
- Council Brian Pinkston said he would be willing to pursue hydrogen as a pilot but only if the fuel is generated with low emissions.
- City Councilor Michael Payne had a similar position, but said he would prefer to experiment with different types of battery-electric vehicles.
Oscrhin said she was generally in support of more investment in transit.
“There’s too many single-occupancy vehicles on the road and we need to do what we can to provide people with the opportunity to make the choice to get somewhere faster and reliably in a communal way, so that’s a bus, that’s bike lanes, that’s sidewalks,” Oschrin said.
Oschrin said she was not that interested in hydrogen but could see leaving the option open for research.
Mayor Juandiego Wade said he supported the pilot, but still had questions.
“I’m still not 100 percent clear on how this new technology will improve reliability, “ Wade said. “It reminds me of when I was on the School Board and there was a big movement to improve the lunches and to make it more healthy and we did that and we implemented it in the schools. But all the schools threw most of the lunch away so we had the healthiest trash cans in the state of Virginia. I don’t want to have the cleanest buses but no one is on it because we don’t have the resources.”
With direction in hand to proceed with the pilot, Sanders thanked the staff at Kimley-Horn for taking what he described as a “light beating” simply for doing their jobs.
Before you go: The time to write and research of this article is covered by paid subscribers to Charlottesville Community Engagement. In fact, this particular installment comes from the March 14, 2024 edition of the newsletter and podcast. The audio version of this segment is also in the radio edition that aired on WTJU on March 16, 2024 and archived on the Charlottesville Podcasting Network.
To ensure Town Crier Productions can continue to grow and continue to experiment, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or contributing monthly through Patreon.
