Transportation: Transit Officials Done With Battery Electric Buses

From the Article:

The Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) has operated battery electric buses for less than a year, and in light of a spotty first nine months and changing “market realities,” officials are planning to only purchase clean-diesel buses in the near term.

Top transportation officials have been suggested in recent months that ordering new BEBs is not a good idea for the county. One of the primary reasons is that there aren’t any manufacturers in the U.S. market officials trust. The BEB manufacturer MCTS purchased the county’s first BEBs from left the U.S. market in 2023 and isn’t accepting new orders. And on top of it all, the technology has not proven itself reliable and the buses are incredibly expensive.

Officials from MCTS and the Milwaukee County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) will go before the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors in March seeking changes to the county policy for battery electric buses and fleet replacement.

Officials are proposing that the county continue to replace aging buses with new clean-diesel buses. Additionally, transitioning to an alternative fuel source bus will be paused until “these vehicles are further tested, easily available, determined to be fiscally sustainable and have the appropriate infrastructure deployed within Milwaukee,” according to the draft policy.

This would tweak the county’s existing policy, which only held off on transitioning the fleet from diesel to battery electric until the end of a BEB pilot program, which was the implementation of 11 BEBs along the Connect 1 bus rapid transit line.