250 New O.C. Buses to Use Natural Gas

With bus ridership and gasoline prices surging, Orange County transportation planners on Monday approved the purchase of 250 compressed natural-gas buses over three years.

Noting that ridership is up 7% and fuel prices are soaring, Art Leahy, chief executive of the Orange County Transportation Authority, persuaded the authority’s directors to order the natural-gas-powered buses now and get a $5-million quantity discount.

Leahy said that if bus ridership increased only 1%, “that change in behavior could overwhelm the bus system.”

The authority has 67 million fares a year.

Leahy said he didn’t want a repeat of what occurred in the 1970s during the last severe fuel shortage. More bus riders meant increased demand for buses, which caused a run on bus sales. Some transit agencies couldn’t get enough, he said.

Most of OCTA’s 564-bus fleet is diesel-powered, and the rest run on liquefied natural gas. The diesel buses are scheduled to be replaced by cleaner-burning buses as they are retired.

The state Air Quality Management District prohibits transit agencies from buying diesel-powered buses because of clean-air regulations, OCTA officials said.

Compressed natural-gas buses are cleaner-burning than comparable diesel vehicles, particularly in nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions, two primary elements in smog.

When the $106-million purchase order is filled, the agency will have 299 natural-gas buses in service by 2009.

By comparison, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Los Angeles County has 2,200 natural-gas-powered buses, the largest such fleet in North America, said Kim Upton, an MTA spokeswoman.

The MTA’s natural-gas fleet reduces emissions of particulate matter by more than 90%, carbon monoxide by more than 80% and greenhouse gases by more than 20% compared with its diesel buses, she said.

In other business, OCTA directors approved seeking federal funding for a $15.8-million study by water and transportation agencies to determine whether an 11-mile tunnel through the Santa Ana Mountains was feasible.

The controversial tunnel would be an alternative to the congested Riverside Freeway, the main artery linking Riverside and Orange counties.

The action comes amid growing support for the tunnel by Riverside County officials, who want to ease traffic congestion, and increasing opposition by southern Orange County officials, who fear that a tunnel would flood neighborhoods with more traffic. Water districts see a tunnel as a route for pipelines.

Laguna Niguel Mayor Cathryn DeYoung, who attended Monday’s meeting, criticized the “terrible tunnel” for its estimated $6-billion cost and the traffic it would add to South County. “It’s a terrible waste of transportation dollars,” she said.

But the approval was defended by Bill Campbell, an OCTA director and county supervisor.

“This is just a study to see if both a water and traffic tunnel can be built,” Campbell said. “That’s all.”