New, Cleaner SCAT Buses Hit the Road : Transportation: The 26 vehicles, which burn compressed natural gas, are touted as the agency’s contribution to the drive for purer air.

South Coast Area Transit has become the first bus system in the county to replace most of its noisy, diesel-belching fleet with cleaner-burning, compressed natural gas vehicles.

SCAT has phased the 26 distinctive, salmon-aqua-and-marine buses into its 35-vehicle fleet for two months.

Today, all are on the roads of Ventura, Ojai, Oxnard, Port Hueneme and the western unincorporated areas of the county that SCAT serves.

“They sound like your mother’s kitchen range,” driver Herb Rounds, 51, said Wednesday, barely raising his voice as he stood behind a bus outside Buenaventura Mall. “No dripping oil--[it’s] bone dry. You can eat off it.”

Rounds wasn’t enveloped in the customary plume of diesel smoke as he spoke.

The buses’ odor is barely noticeable, even when standing directly behind one.

In fact, what SCAT calls a “slight pleasant odor” is added to the gas for safety reasons, said Maureen Hooper Lopez, planning and marketing director.

SCAT, which carries 3 million riders annually, touts the vehicles as its contribution to the drive for cleaner air.

Officials say the buses reduce emissions that form ozone, the principal ingredient in smog, by as much as 95%.

Furthermore, the buses slash carbon dioxide emissions by 30%, carbon monoxide emissions by 85% and virtually eliminate particulates--the cancer-causing pollutant that can lodge in the lungs.

In truth, most passengers simply appreciate the new vehicles’ creature comforts, including a lack of graffiti, more roomy interior and air conditioning that actually works.

The buses are also completely wheelchair accessible.

But regular riders notice the difference between diesel and natural gas.

“The other old buses--they stunk,” said Luis Moreno, 49, who commutes daily to his mid-town job from his home in the Ventura Avenue area. “The others were noisy [and] ready to fall apart.”

The buses and a fueling facility set for completion in mid-December represent a $9.1-million investment for the district.

Converting the entire fleet will take another two years and $3 million, Lopez said.

Federal grants are funding most of the project, with the county and local cities pitching in as well.

With a price tag of about $300,000, each bus costs up to $50,000 more than a diesel.

And the mechanical complexities of the buses mean that the transit district may have to hire two more mechanics, Lopez said.

But district officials believe that the benefits of clean air make the buses a good investment.

Others agree: Thousand Oaks’ transit system has several natural gas buses on order, Lopez said.

“We can make a loud statement to the public, who see the new [natural gas] buses driving by, and to the system’s users, who are helping reduce emissions simply by using our buses rather than driving their own vehicles,” said Susan Lacey, a county supervisor and chairwoman of the transit agency’s board of directors.