A total of $395.5 million has been put towards funding public transit in a joint federal and provincial investment.
A portion of that has been set aside to fund the electrification of public transit in certain parts of B.C., including adding more of the buses in Greater Victoria.
Part of the investment will go towards BC Transit purchasing 115 electric buses, along with supporting the design, installation and charging infrastructure – with 134 new charging points – needed for the new buses to operate across British Columbia.
“Today’s announcement is a game-changer for our communities and for our environment because carrying more battery-powered electric buses and charging infrastructure will provide clean public transit options and improve service access for British Columbians,” said West Vancouver, Sunshine Coast, Sea to Sky Country MP Patrick Weiler at a news conference in Victoria on Wednesday (July 26).
Starting Thursday (July 27), some of the buses will be in service. The buses have a similar external and internal design to that of the standard BC Transit buses seen across the province. One of the only differences is the public can ride the buses with no charge during a trial period, as BC transit is looking to see how the public takes to the new electronic automobiles.
“Part one of this is, we’re looking to put this bus into service and having the public ride it,” said manager for BC Transit, Ryan Drake. “We received this demo bus last fall and then the last few months we’ve been using it to familiarize our staff, look at our business processes, see how we transition to port electric buses in our fleet, and now as we’ve gone through and driven basically every route in the Victoria district to know that we can run this bus successfully on those routes.”
The buses that have driven from Sooke to Sidney are part of BC Transit’s Electrification Program in efforts to align with British Columbia’s CleanBC emission-reduction goals as well as BC Transit’s transition to an electric fleet by 2024.
“This represents the beginning of our electrification pathway,” said Drake. “So this will be the first bus that will closely represent the production units that will be showing up this fall.”
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