BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Rest assured, today’s bus wheels still go 'round and 'round, just like you remember.
Only now, they do so silently and odorlessly.
On Friday, Bethlehem Area School District unveiled two new electric school buses.
A $1 million state grant funded the purchase of the buses as well as the related infrastructure and job training to implement the changes.
The district collaborated with local electric provider PPL to assess and plan for the infrastructure upgrades required to support electrification.
“You would drive to the yard in the morning and it looked like a mushroom cloud… that was the carbon burning inefficiently through the diesel engines. You could actually climb in your bus and you could taste the taste of diesel in your mouth because it was that thick in the air.”Lesa Buttillo, Bethlehem Area School District's tenured bus driver
Christine Martin, president of PPL Electric Utilities, said no significant upgrades were made to the grid.
“That is a testament to the investments that PPL utilities, with the support of its customers and communities and partners, have been able to make in our grid to make it stronger and more resilient and help usher in a cleaner energy future,” Martin said.
Each bus will have a respective three-tier route, meaning elementary, middle and high school, for Liberty High School and Freedom High School.
Lesa Buttillo, the district’s most tenured bus driver, recounted the changes in the district’s bus fleet since 2003.
She said that for the first 9 1/2 years of her career, the BASD buses were manually operated. They had metal dashboards and crank windows, she said.
“You would drive to the yard in the morning and it looked like a mushroom cloud… that was the carbon burning inefficiently through the diesel engines,” Buttillo said.
“You could actually climb in your bus and you could taste the taste of diesel in your mouth because it was that thick in the air.”
'Healthier ride to school'
State Sen. Lisa Boscola, who helped secure the grant that bought the buses, also is a Freedom High alum.
Boscola said she, too, remembers the smell of diesel in the air on her walk to school in the mornings.
The new, emission-free buses offer a more sustainable, and odorless, alternative, she said.
“Our students win, our taxpayers win and our environment wins with a steady transition away from diesel buses to electric buses."State Sen. Lisa Boscola in a statement
“Our students win, our taxpayers win and our environment wins with a steady transition away from diesel buses to electric buses,” Boscola said in a statement.
BASD Chief Facilities and Operations Officer Mark Stein said the district has applied for a federal grant that would help subsidize the cost of up to 10 additional electric buses.
Stein said the cost of an electric bus is about three times that of a gas-powered bus, but that it’s cheaper to charge a bus than to fill its tank with gas.
Additionally, a gas-powered bus runs for about seven years. The district expects the electric bus to run for a minimum of 10 years.
The buses, Thomas Saf-T-Liner C2 “Jouley” all-electric buses, have a maximum range of 138 miles.
After their routes, the buses will return to the lot, where they’ll be plugged in to achieve a full charge.
BASD Superintendent Jack P. Silva said the district is proud to bring the buses to the community.
“The new buses will allow us to reduce our impact on the community and provide our students with a safer, healthier ride to school," Silva said.
“We are extremely grateful for Senator Lisa Boscola’s support and the generous grant which allowed us to begin electrifying our fleet.”
