Sonoma County Transit Adds Seven Electric Buses and an Outage-Ready Charging System
The county's goal is to electrify most of its heavy-duty transit fleet by 2030, and the new chargers have backup generation for emergencies.
By the Bay Area Brief staff · Edited by Seamus McKenna · · 3 min read
The Streets of Brentwood shopping center in Brentwood in late-afternoon sun. Photo: Thomasfan1916 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped, resized and color-graded). Archive photo of the area; not a photo of the events in this story.
On Monday, Oct. 26, Sonoma County Transit cut the ribbon on seven new 40-foot electric buses and a new charging system at its facility at 355 W. Robles Ave. in Santa Rosa.
What's new
The seven buses bring the agency's zero-emission fleet to 18.
The charging system has backup generation to keep buses charged during power outages. The county says that keeps buses available for evacuations. County transit buses helped move residents during the 2017 and 2019 wildfire evacuations.
The county plans to electrify most of its heavy-duty transit fleet by 2030.
Funding came from a mix of local, state and federal sources.
"This charging system gives us the capacity to support the 18 zero-emission buses now in service and expand the electric fleet over time," said transit manager Emily Betts.
Sources
This article is an original summary based on the following reporting. We encourage readers to visit the original sources for full coverage.
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