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A new California Air Resources Board mandate requiring public transportation services to begin transitioning to zero emissions vehicles may prove to be a heavy lift for the Redwood Coast Transit Authority.

For one thing, while they may operate well within the Crescent City area, current electric buses don’t have the range and battery storage capabilities to cover RCT’s regional routes, Manager Joe Rye told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Wednesday.

Then there’s the task of retrofitting RCT’s yard on Williams Drive with charging stations, transformers and other infrastructure needs to charge the buses, he said.

“Our current service panel and our current transformer doesn’t have enough juice,” Rye told RCT directors at a May 4 meeting. “We might be able to do a pilot bus — one charger of one overnight bus with the current system — the Pacific Power technician thought we might have enough to do that, but that’s it. We’re going to need to upgrade the yard.”

Enacted in 2018, CARB’s Innovative Clean Transit Rule requires that by 2026, 25 percent of new busses purchased by public transit authorities must be zero emissions vehicles, Rye said. By 2029, all new bus purchases must be zero emissions vehicles, he said.

In response to the new mandates, RCT hired transportation consultants Hatch LTK with help from a Community Transportation Association of America grant to create a plan that help the authority determine its vehicle and infrastructure needs.

According to Rye, who presented a draft of that plan to the RCT Board of Directors on May 4, that plan determined that routes 1 through 4, which operate in Crescent City would be a good fit for electric buses. They operate in a flat area, covering roughly 80-100 miles a day, which is the near-current range of most batteries in the industry, he said.

Rye also noted that with battery technology improving, it’s possible that electric buses in the Crescent City area could operate all day without needing to be recharged until close of business.

However, electric buses likely wouldn’t be a good option for RCT’s route between Smith River and Arcata or its route between Crescent City and Gasquet, according to Rye. He pointed out that Route 20 to Arcata is roughly 100 miles.

Of its fleet of 13 buses, roughly eight are used in the greater Crescent City area, while five operate in the outerlying areas, according to Rye.

“There doesn’t seem to be an apparent path forward for our regional long distance routes that go down into Arcata, for example, up and down over mountains and steep grades,” he said.

Hydrogen might be an alternative zero emissions fuel besides electricity for use on RCT’s regional buses — one that a regional partnership of transit authorities, the Far North Group, is exploring, Rye said. But the closest hydrogen production facility is in Sacramento, he said.

As for the RCT’s infrastructure needs, though the consultant didn’t factor that into the plan, staff met with Pacific Power representatives and urged a technician to visit its facility, and they determined there’s not enough power at the facility to charge a fleet of electric buses.

According to Rye, RCT obtained state Low Carbon Transit Operations Program grant dollars, about $80,000, for its electric bus project, but it can only be used to purchase a new vehicle or to construct supports for an electric fleet. Those dollars can’t be used for planning and engineering, he said.

“It’s sort of seed money,” Rye said. “But it’s not enough to do the project by itself. We’ve applied for a couple of competitive grants, one was the Volkswagen Settlement Fund, but we haven’t heard back yea or nay on that route. Our fingers are crossed.”

During the May 4 meeting, one of the directors, Del Norte County District 1 Supervisor Darrin Short, asked if there was any effort to lobby for an exemption to the Innovative Clean Transit Rule for rural communities. Short noted that the technology needed for electric buses to be a feasible option for rural areas isn't there yet and asked if the county or city needs to get involved.

Rye said there was a lot of push back from the transit industry when the Innovative Clean Transit Rule was enacted. This, he said, resulted in a more relaxed approach where transit authority vehicle purchases don’t have to be 100 percent zero emissions until 2029.

“That was probably a small fruit of lobbying efforts to explain to them that you just can’t turn on a switch and make this happen overnight, especially in rural areas,” he said “I think there needs to be a coalition effort from rural counties, rural cities and transit agencies to keep it on the radar of the Air Resources Board because I don’t believe 2029 is enough time, especially if the electric bus industry can’t pull that rabbit out of the hat and address their power and range issues fast enough.”

Though it has yet to be formalized with any sort of memorandum of understanding, Redwood Transit Authority has partnered with transit authorities in Humboldt, Trinity, Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma counties to form the Far North Group.

One thing the group may address is the CARB mandate requiring 25 percent of new bus purchases be zero emissions vehicles by 2026. Rye noted that for his agency that likely purchases one or two buses per year, meeting that requirement is impractical. Collaborating with the Far North Group may help, he said.

“One thing we’re working on together is we might be able to pool our purchasing,” he said. “If one of us buys two electric buses, we may meet that 25 percent (requirement) for the year for the whole group. Because we’re so small, it’s not like we’re in an urban area.”

Rye said RCT hasn’t yet sought Legislative relief or an exemption to the Innovative Clean Transit Rule, but that’s an option.

“I don’t think we’re alone,” he said of the rule. “It’s a high bar for a lot of rurals to reach, especially considering state and federal funding to buy buses with hasn’t increased. Not only are electric buses more expensive, but you also have to invest in the infrastructure in your yard to charge them, which also costs money and is not funded.”

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