King County Metro has contracted with European bus builder Solaris to buy up to 16 zero-emission buses. This marks Solaris’ first contract with a U.S.-based transit agency and represents the compan…
I wish we would spend that on maintenance and expansion of the electric trolleybuses. Makes more economic sense in comparison to electric battery electric buses. Or spend more on conventional buses and staff, since private car usage is far more environmentally damaging than a diesel bus fleet.
It’s just not viable, there’s literally only a single company that makes the equipment for the overhead wire system anymore and it’s monstrously expensive. Or at least that’s what I was told while I was working there by the mechanics when I would talk to them. And from what I was hearing it was sounding like the company that was doing it doesn’t want to do it anymore so I wouldn’t be surprised if the goal is to drop the overhead wire trolleys eventually
I would imagine there’s plenty of Manufacturers for overhead wire in general just not the specific ones that Metro is using. And if you’re talking about switching over everything to a new manufacturer and a new style of overhead. Most importantly the special work like track switches and the poles on the buses themselves you get to the point where well if we are already going to be replacing the fleet and then having to replace the cables on top of it and pure electric is becoming viable why not just do that
Idk battery electric buses have tire pollution and dirty batteries. (At least with catenary the battery is minimized) And the battery ones still use diesel for heating in northern winters. Trolleys don’t have either of those problems.
I wish we would spend that on maintenance and expansion of the electric trolleybuses. Makes more economic sense in comparison to electric battery electric buses. Or spend more on conventional buses and staff, since private car usage is far more environmentally damaging than a diesel bus fleet.
It’s just not viable, there’s literally only a single company that makes the equipment for the overhead wire system anymore and it’s monstrously expensive. Or at least that’s what I was told while I was working there by the mechanics when I would talk to them. And from what I was hearing it was sounding like the company that was doing it doesn’t want to do it anymore so I wouldn’t be surprised if the goal is to drop the overhead wire trolleys eventually
There’s got to be a reliable equipment manufacturer out there with San Francisco’s trolly bus and cable car network being the largest in the us 🤔
I would imagine there’s plenty of Manufacturers for overhead wire in general just not the specific ones that Metro is using. And if you’re talking about switching over everything to a new manufacturer and a new style of overhead. Most importantly the special work like track switches and the poles on the buses themselves you get to the point where well if we are already going to be replacing the fleet and then having to replace the cables on top of it and pure electric is becoming viable why not just do that
Given every city has busses, I would think focusing on the would be better. Much more likely to electrify busses than roll out new rail based transit.
Idk battery electric buses have tire pollution and dirty batteries. (At least with catenary the battery is minimized) And the battery ones still use diesel for heating in northern winters. Trolleys don’t have either of those problems.