TriMet’s high-capacity bus line on Division Street will be powered primarily, if not entirely, by diesel buses when it opens in 2022, despite the agency’s stated goal to ditch those buses entirely in the coming decades.

The transit agency’s board voted 5-2 on Wednesday to approve a contract with Nova Buses to order 31 diesel articulated buses, those 60-foot-long extended buses that will operate on the 15-mile stretch of Division Street between downtown Portland and Gresham. TriMet is only committed to buying those 31 vehicles, but the board approved a plan to buy as many as 159 diesel articulated buses in coming years. That agreement could cost $203.5 million.

The vote comes nearly one year to the date after the transit board unanimously approved a plan to ditch the diesel fleet by 2040 or earlier. TriMet has the nation’s 11th largest bus fleet. That $500 million blueprint approved last year set a five-year window to figure out whether battery-electric buses were indeed the best fuel source to convert the fleet. TriMet plans to buy 80 of those buses by 2023.

“We wish we had an articulated electric bus in play,” Doug Kelsey, TriMet’s general manager, said of the $175 million Division Transit Project during the board meeting.

But TriMet faces poor timing: It needs to order buses by the dozen now in order to get the transit line operational in 2022, and it said no company makes articulated battery-electric buses that met their needs. Companies that responded to TriMet’s solicitation instead proposed 60-foot buses that could only travel a short-distance.

Time wasn’t on the agency’s side. Kelsey told the board: “We have to make a decision.”

TriMet celebrated putting its first battery-electric bus in service. TriMet hopes to transition from its diesel fleet by 2040 or earlier. The event was held April 16, 2019 at TriMet's Merlo Garage in Beaverton.

On Wednesday, TriMet leaders and board members were openly frustrated that the technology didn’t exist to buy articulated electric buses that would work on Division.

Board members Ozzie Gonzalez and Kathy Wai voted to oppose the measure. Wai said the proposal was “a little bit of a letdown, particularly to the public.”

An estimated 40% of Oregon’s emissions come from the transportation sector. Just last year, TriMet’s diesel-ditching plan called global climate change “one of the most important environmental and economic challenges of our times."

TriMet is Oregon’s largest single consumer of diesel fuel, burning through about 6 million gallons year. According to an internal analysis released last year, that amounts to about 57,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the metro area’s air every year. TriMet estimates its riders - by opting not to drive -- help reduce carbon emissions by 78,000 metric tons annually.

“It’s regrettable where we are, timing wise,” Bruce Warner, the board’s chair, said before approving the contract, “but we want that Division project to get underway and get the buses on the ground.” TriMet said it’s hopeful a company will soon provide an articulated electric bus that can travel longer distances.

TriMet has five battery-electric buses on hand and another eight on the way. Those buses are 40-feet-long, not the 60-foot models planned for Division. TriMet is, thus far, only using the electric buses on one route on the westside, but it eventually plans to have electric fleets operate out of its Powell Bus Garage as well.

Kelsey said TriMet must play by the Federal Transit Administration’s rules outlined in its grant program in order to receive the money necessary to build the Division project in the first place. TriMet is banking on $87.4 million from the federal government to make the $175 million project happen.

The agency considered hybrid-electric articulated buses, but engineers said those buses are costly to maintain. TriMet has just eight hybrid-electric buses in its entire nearly 700 bus fleet.

TriMet on April 16, 2019 celebrated the official launch of its first battery-electric bus, part of a long-range effort to ditch diesel vehicles for zero-emission buses.

Kelsey said he would not give up on opening that route with “some semblance” of an electric bus presence in 2022.

“I don’t know the pathway yet,” he added.

He’s hopeful one pathway may be contained inside a $6.1 million contract separately approved by the board Thursday.

TriMet approved a deal with Complete Coach Works, a Riverside, Calif.-based company, to refurbish diesel buses that are roughly halfway through their 16-year estimated life span and convert some of them to battery-electric vehicles.

The contract also calls for a plan to buy a used articulated diesel bus and convert it to battery electric.

That process could take eight months, TriMet officials said this week.

Converting a 40-foot model would take six months initially, but if successful, TriMet said it might be able to do so every two weeks.

Kelsey estimated that TriMet could save $300,000 by converting older diesel buses to battery-electric models.

“This has potential cost structure opportunities for us that we hadn’t really contemplated,” he said, adding the agency is taking a “long-term trajectory.”

Complete Coach Works is also working with Washington state to covert buses to electric vehicles.

Kelsey said this effort, if it’s successful, could be “pioneering” for all transit agencies.

TriMet’s leader didn’t mince words on the optics of buying dozens of diesel buses, saying it was “not a desirous state” for the agency, even though the buses may be retired or converted to electric before the agency’s 2040 deadline to ditch diesel.

“We’re going to push the innovation card,” he added.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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