MTA Plan to Increase Fleet of Diesel Buses Draws Fire
The City Council will consider a resolution tonight “strongly opposing” an MTA plan to convert 330 Los Angeles buses from ethanol to diesel fuel.
“Ethanol is a clean-burning fuel, whereas the concept of clean diesel is preposterous,” said Councilman Jeff Prang, who co-authored the resolution. “We need to increase the number of alternative fuels, not decrease them.”
Prang said that the city’s depot, where hundreds of MTA buses are parked, is the largest on the Westside. “We don’t want pollution pigs in our neighborhood,” he said.
Ellen Levine, executive officer of transit operations for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, called the ethanol fleet “very unreliable.”
The life of an ethanol engine is about 26,000 miles--about one-sixth that of its diesel counterpart, she said. It costs $11.2 million more per year to maintain the city’s ethanol fleet, she said.
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