If you live on Southeast Division Street and use public transit, or if you like clean air to breathe, then TriMet has a bait-and-switch for you.
Once upon a time there was a plan.
A magic plan.
A magic plan that would bring high-capacity, on-time performance to the Southeast Division transit corridor between Tilikum Crossing in downtown Portland and Mount Hood Community College (MHCC) in Gresham.
Better yet, the magic plan would be assisted by a huge federal grant.
Even better yet, the magic plan would employ a fleet of energy-conserving, 60 foot-long, articulating, battery-electric buses.
This TriMet dream just came to a screeching...COUGH, according to a recent article in the Oregonian.
The plan was hijacked.
By a failure of TriMet to implement the magic plan, to do metrics on its bus-manufacturing/converting contractors.
No bus manufacturers would supply battery-electric-ready 60-foot articulated buses.
The new plan now will utilize a fleet of 60 foot-long, articulating, diesel buses.
Trimet's diesel bus annual contribution to Portland's air and the planet's demise: 57 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2)!
In the short run, sole-contractor Nova Buses will supply a limited number of 40-foot, articulating, diesel buses.
Diesel fuel, that foul-smelling, dirty-looking, toxic plume rising from fewer and fewer vehicles these days reminds us not to inhale too deeply the already invisibly carcinogenic air all around us.
In the long run, sole-contractor Riverside, California-based Complete Coach Works will convert 60-foot articulated diesel buses to battery-electric.
TriMet hopes to be able to convert some diesel fuel buses to battery-electric before the planned 2022 opening of the Southeast Division Street transit corridor, but was forced last month by timing constraints to place the order for a fleet of diesel fuel buses.
On January 30, 2019, Jen Coleman of Oregon Environmental Council reported "DIESEL EMISSIONS IMPACTS TO HUMAN HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT ARE NOT BEING ADEQUATELY ADDRESSED BY THE DEQ [DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY] OR THROUGH TOXICS REDUCTION STRATEGY PLANNING.” [Emphasis in original]. Coleman points out that diesel pollution is not limited to the air we breathe: Its toxic CO2 particulates rain down on our snowpacks, our watersheds, our groundwaters, our farmlands, our reservoirs, our salmon, our skin.
So, why did TriMet take this big step backward into the apocolyptic fossil-fuel swamp from its expressed goal of completely eliminating fleet reliance on diesel by 2040?
Trimet exhausts fiifty-seven thousand tons of CO2 every year into your environment.
That is slightly less CO2 volume than TriMet claims it saves our metro area annually by transforming drivers into passengers.
Think about that for a minute.
...
While you inhale 'oxygen.'
57k tons of CO2 rain down.
Another small step for mankind's apocolypse.
Thanks, TriMet!
Insufficient capacity and too little time to manufacture or convert diesel-fueled 60-foot articulable buses to battery-electric buses, according to TriMet General Manager Doug Kelsey ("We have to make a decision...") following the recent 5-2 TriMet board vote to diesel down.
TriMet says bad timing; I say poor planning.
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