'A more sustainable and a healthier community': Bethlehem schools buy 10 more electric school buses

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Sustainability is a leadership issue, Mark Stein said Monday morning.

“You don’t have to do it, but it makes a lot of sense,” said Stein, the district’s chief of facilities and operations. “But it takes someone to actually do it — it doesn't happen automatically. You need people to get the priorities and to take action.

“Here, in Bethlehem, we take our sustainability pretty seriously.”

Stein, alongside city Mayor J. William Reynolds and other officials, on Monday announced $2 million in federal rebates for the district to buy 10 more electric school buses during a news conference at Spring Garden Elementary School, 901 North Blvd.

Expected to be on the road for the next school year, district and environmental officials touted the health benefits of the switch — both to students and bus drivers.

“We make a big difference when we work together, and that's what's really distinctive about what we're celebrating here today,” said Adam Ortiz, administrator for EPA Region 3. “As we all know, this is a very divided time in our country, but that's not the full story.

“There's also a lot of collaboration and cooperation happening below the headlines. And today, we are here showing up to support incredible work and incredible alignment here in the school district and in the city.”

To both Disneys and back, 24 times

Generally, when the EPA shows up, administrators and local leaders automatically think there’s trouble, Ortiz said.

“But the truth is that, no, it's the opposite,” he said. “You're doing something fantastic and we’re here to support you … We know that to really make a difference in sustainability and then the health of our children and our communities, we have to do more than just enforcement and compliance.”

School buses are “an incredible way to do that,” he said, citing the harmful pollutants that spew into the air from a diesel bus’s tailpipe as students wait to board a bus at the end of each school day.

“We make that queue cleaner,” he said. “We make the neighborhoods cleaner as these buses drive through them. And then, importantly, often forgotten, but also the super tough job in the schools, is being a bus driver.

“And in speaking to the bus drivers, and we've spoken to many, they talk in glowing terms how pleasant it is to ride in an electric bus.”

With an electric bus, there’s less noise, and there aren’t diesel fumes wafting into children’s or the driver’s lungs, he said.

“One in four kids in the Lehigh Valley have respiratory issues, including asthma, so this will make a difference,” Ortiz said.

Air quality has been a point of contention throughout the Valley for several years, especially with the region’s ever-expanding, prolific trucking and warehousing industries. Last month, Allentown was named the asthma capital of the U.S. — for the second year in a row.

In August, Lehigh and Northampton counties' officials marked the first year complete in the “Lehigh Valley Breathes” project. The initiative focuses on detecting and measuring concentrations of PM 2.5 across different areas, including rural areas and urban corridors.

PM 2.5 are particles so small that they’re invisible to the naked eye, but made up of a mix of chemicals that can get deep into the lungs and can cause health problems.

The industrial and transportation sectors are responsible for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in the Valley, at 32.3% and 32.1%, respectively, according to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission’s latest greenhouse gas assessment.

“There are many positive impacts of putting zero emission vehicles out on the road,” Stein said, using chronic absenteeism as an example. “The Lehigh Valley is known for its pockets of less than desirable air quality here … That's exacerbated by our diesel exhaust, driving around our 1.3 million miles a year that we travel around the Bethlehem community.”

The rebates don’t just add 10 more buses, he said, but it also takes 10 diesel buses off the road. As part of the rebate, the diesel buses must be destroyed.

“And that's going to save us about 150,000 miles of travel,” Stein said. “You might ask, ‘What is 150,000 miles?’ It’s kind of hard to internalize that. I like to use the Disney World Tour.

“So, that represents the emissions taken off the road of a school bus driving from Bethlehem to Disneyland, Southern California, to Disney World in Orlando and back to Bethlehem — 24 times.”

‘A more sustainable and a healthier community’

Standing in front of one of the electric buses already in service in the district, Reynolds said it was a symbol of a “spirit of cooperation and collaboration” in the city’s sustainability efforts.

“Seven years ago, I had introduced the idea of launching a climate action plan here in the city of Bethlehem, because we didn't have that collaboration with our state and federal partners,” he said. “You didn't see much coming as far as climate action is concerned.

“Now, seven years later, we see that. The infrastructure investments, the climate bill that have come down from Washington are truly transformational.”

Bethlehem’s climate action plan was published in April 2021. Among other goals, it lays out a roadmap to achieve a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from municipal buildings and transportation by 2030. Officials also set a 33% reduction of community-wide emissions by 2025.

During a November update on the plan, officials announced a new goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions community wide by 60% come 2030 and grab a net-zero status come 2040.

And, the city is undergoing the process to hire a sustainability manager, the second major city in the Valley to carve out the position.

There are two electric buses already in the district’s fleet, funded through a $1 million state grant. The district expects an electric bus to run for a minimum of 10 years.

Culture isn’t easily changed, Reynolds said.

“It takes a while,” he said. “It's bit by bit by bit, but slowly, we're becoming a more sustainable and a healthier community here in the city of Bethlehem, and within the Bethlehem Area School District.”