Matt Doll, Minnesota Environmental Partnership
The Twin Cities’ Metro Transit system is making progress on electrifying its vehicles, MEP staff heard at a briefing earlier this month, though there’s still a long way to go to make the system free of climate emissions.
At this Zero-Emission Bus Transition Plan Stakeholder Meeting, Metro Transit officials shared information with us on its small but growing electric bus fleet, which is still in its early stages of development. Currently, Metro Transit’s fleet includes over 800 buses, but less than 1% of those are electric, with 55 hybrids on the road.
Gradual electrification is something of a return to form for Twin Cities transit, which was once composed of all-electric streetcars. Suburbanization and deliberate business decisions by transit operators in the 1950s resulted in the replacement of the streetcars with oil-powered buses. Only with the construction of the Blue Line light rail, followed by the Green Line, did Minnesota start to turn back towards electricity for transit power.
Growing Metro Transit’s electric fleet will make an already low-carbon transportation source much more climate friendly. The C-line electric bus pilot, Metro Transit’s first electric bus testing program, started in 2019, and during its operation, it was found to cut emissions relative to a diesel-powered bus by the equivalent of 107 gas-powered passenger vehicles operating for one year. On a broader level, current emissions from electric buses are found to be about 17% lower. 17% may not seem groundbreaking, but it’s a figure that will continue to improve rapidly as Minnesota’s electrical grid goes green, just as it will for other electric vehicles.
The key challenge to overcome, according to Metro Transit, is cost. Existing transit infrastructure, fueling, and technology is largely based on diesel, and electric buses are still more expensive per mile than diesel buses. But more effective charging – especially at night, when electricity is cheaper – can significantly reduce that cost, and the technology and planning is gradually improving. And electric vehicles have an advantage in stop-and-go traffic over internal combustion engine vehicles – they use far less energy when not moving.
This year, Metro Transit plans to introduce 20 new 40-foot buses to local routes, and to introduce five 60-foot electric buses to the METRO Gold Line. It will also begin operating more charging equipment at additional garages.
Steps like these matter for the bigger picture of transportation emissions in the Twin Cities. The recent discontinuing of the North Star Commuter Rail line, which served communities between Minneapolis and Big Lake, shows how shifting regional trends in employment and commuting can drastically change transit needs. (It didn’t help that the North Star never made it to St. Cloud.) On the other hand, the success of Amtrak’s Borealis line shows that demand for rail transit is still robust in certain corridors.
The challenge ahead, then, is to build a strategy for more and cleaner transit both in the Twin Cities Metro and Greater Minnesota, using both rail and more flexible, electric-powered Bus Rapid Transit lines to replace as many car trips as possible. Transportation remains Minnesota’s number one source of climate emissions, and it can be fixed.
MEP would like to express our care and solidarity with the people of Minnesota and our immigrant neighbors in this difficult time. We thank all those who are standing up for our shared constitutional rights and helping their communities through peaceful action and generosity. We call on state and federal leaders to work to end the atmosphere of fear in our state and secure peace, liberty, and justice for all.