Even as cities around the world (see: Shenzhen, China) and in the United States go full-throttle toward the adoption of electric fleets, New York, with the nation’s largest bus fleet, has lagged: Its electric buses still qualify as a “pilot” project. The announcement is the latest step in the slow rollout of MTA bus electrification, which has been hampered by the fact that New York City pays some of the highest electrical rates in the nation. Transportation is the second-largest contributor of greenhouse-gas emissions in New York, after buildings. “Mass transit is the antidote to climate change,” MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said at a Midtown press conference, adding that transit avoids putting 17 million metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually (e.g., by keeping people out of cars). Kingsbridge, Manhattan: servicing the Bx3, Bx7, Bx10, Bx13, Bx18, Bx20, M100.Charleston, Staten Island: servicing the S55, S56, S74, S78, S84.The six depots and the routes affected are: The MTA has leased a smattering of other electric buses for use in the outer boroughs. The 15 authority-owned electric articulated buses now ply two routes: the M60 to LaGuardia Airport and the M14 along 14th Street. The authority will deploy the electric buses to six depots in all five boroughs in “environmental justice communities” with disproportionately high asthma rates, a function of pollution. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said today that it will add 60 electric buses to its 6,000-bus fleet by the end of the year, augmenting the 15 it now owns, in what it branded as an “Earth Day” announcement.
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