The day was Monday, September the 17th. A crowd of spectators, made up of some EvCC students and employees, Everett Transit and City of Everett Officials, even our US Representative, Rick Larsen, gathered together across the street from Whitehorse Hall. What for, you may be asking? Well, Everett Transit has officially introduced its first ever 100% electric bus, and it was here, at EvCC’s College Station, that they held the ribbon cutting ceremony.
According to the official statements from Everett Transit, the bus is just one of many more to come. In fact, they plan to electrify about half of their fleet by 2021. All of this is in large part due to a $3.4 million federal grant through the USDOT’s Low or No Emissions Vehicle Program, which was developed to help with replacing old and polluting public vehicles, such as transit buses.
As Mayor Franklin pointed out during her speech at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, by 2022 there will be 18 of these new vehicles, replacing Everett Transits decades old fleet. These new buses wills save Everett Transit more than 10,000 gallons of fuel each year. This also reduces the Everett Transit systems carbon footprint by more than 100 tons each year. That’s the same amount of CO2 produced by driving an average passenger vehicle for about 250,000 miles.
This is a very exciting development that only proves that local governments are stepping up and leading the way toward a sustainable, environmentally conscious future.