Charlottetown spends over $6 million on 4 new electric transit buses

The City of Charlottetown is getting ready to electrify the transit system in the capital region, but it might be a while before routes are expanded.

Terry Bernard, chair of the city's environment and sustainability committee, said the purchase of four new electric buses will replace existing diesel vehicles. He said the new buses won't arrive until 2026.

"[It] takes a while to get the electric buses made," Bernard said.

In the meantime, a maintenance facility is being renovated so the new buses can be charged. Bernard said that project will be complete by late-2025.

Council voted unanimously to buy the buses at its regular meeting Tuesday night. The city had initially set aside $5.3 million for the four electric buses, but the price went up to around $6.3 million.

Charlottetown is putting in just over $775,000 to cover the additional cost, with the neighbouring towns of Stratford and Cornwall paying the rest.

Meanwhile, three new diesel transit buses recently arrived and three more are due to arrive in December, Bernard said.

"We didn't plan on buying six new diesel buses in the next two years, but we had to to replace these buses that are falling into disrepair," he said.

12 buses 'need to be retired'

According to city documents from T3 Transit, the capital region service for Charlottetown, Cornwall and Stratford has 18 full-sized buses and two mini-buses.

Twelve of the full-sized buses are 2007 or 2008 models and "are past their recommended useful life and need to be retired," read documents attached to the council resolution. 

"They were second-hand buses, but they had been upgraded," Bernard said.

"Now are the buses safe? Yes they are. Do we have to replace them at some point? Yes we do. They are getting up there are we are starting to see more maintenance issues."

The city also passed a resolution to have a consultant make recommendations on where bus stops and shelters should be located throughout Charlottetown.

"Some transit stops that might have had two or three people are now getting up to 15 to 20 people," Bernard said.

Council also unanimously voted to have city staff to speak with provincial representatives to look at an Island-wide "transit governance framework."

"The province has their system and we have ours, so they are two independent systems, but [it's] the same company that is running both of them," Bernard said. "If we can work together and have our system integrated with their system, we see cost savings there for everybody."

During Tuesday's meeting, Coun. Mitch Tweel asked about maintenance concerns, noting the province has had issues with its fleet of electric school buses.

"With any new technology you are going to have some hurdles to get over... but I think there is a lot of success that goes with electric," Bernard responded.

"Will there be issues with electric? Probably. We hope not as much."

The new buses will replace existing ones, which means the fleet isn't expanding. Bernard said the city is looking into funding applications to add buses to the fleet.