A 40-foot hybrid bus parks near City Hall before Tuesday night’s City Commission meeting. This morning, city officials and transportation advocates will ride the vehicle. The city of Lawrence has already ordered three such vehicles, using .8 million in federal stimulus money. The buses will be assigned to the system’s Route 11, which operates in conjunction with KU Parking & Transit to serve both municipal and Kansas University riders.

A newer, bigger and more environmentally sensitive bus will be rolling along Lawrence streets this morning.

And it will help people who ride, operate, manage and oversee the Lawrence Transit System get used to the idea of an engine cutting out at a stop sign.

“It’s a different feel,” said Robert Nugent, the city’s transit administrator. “You think: Did it just stall out on me or what?”

The new diesel-electric hybrid bus is in Lawrence for a test drive, after having been parked outside City Hall for public inspection Tuesday night.

This morning, the bus — on its way to Kansas City, Mo., where it will enter that city’s transit fleet — will carry invited personnel to “get a feel” for the vehicle, Nugent said.

The city of Lawrence has already ordered three such vehicles, using $1.8 million in federal stimulus money.

Each bus will be 40 feet long — about 10 feet longer than the biggest “T” vehicles now in use — and will be assigned to the system’s Route 11, which operates in conjunction with KU Parking & Transit to serve both municipal and Kansas University riders.