photo by: City of Lawrence contributed

Lawrence Transit's first electric bus is delivered on April 21, 2022.

Lawrence Transit service got a special delivery this week, just in time for Earth Day on Friday.

The first of five electric buses that the city is scheduled to receive this year arrived on Thursday, according to Transit Director Adam Weigel. Weigel said that the city is excited to bring electric buses into Lawrence and contribute to the city’s larger environmental sustainability efforts.

“It fits so well with community goals related to sustainability and is another step we can take to make transit a high-quality experience for current and new riders,” Weigel said in an email. “We may be a smaller city, but within the next couple of years, we will have converted a higher percentage of our fleet to electric than some large, leading cities.”

In 2020, the city received a $3.75 million federal grant, which required a local match of $2.2 million, to purchase the five zero-emission electric buses and charging stations, as the Journal-World previously reported.

The new bus is the first fully electric bus to join the city’s fleet. The city already has three diesel-electric hybrids, which use an electric battery until the bus reaches 25 mph, at which point the diesel engine kicks in.

The city also won another federal grant in 2021 for $1.8 million that will help purchase two additional zero-emission electric buses, and those buses will be added to the fleet in summer 2023. Once the second phase of electric buses is rolled out, seven of the city’s 19 buses will be fully electric, meaning more than a third of the fleet will have transitioned completely away from diesel.

photo by: City of Lawrence contributed

A close-up of Lawrence’s first electric bus, which was delivered on April 21, 2022.

The changeover to electric buses is in addition to other sustainability efforts. In 2020, Lawrence joined other communities across the nation by setting specific goals for renewable energy use, with the ultimate goal of powering the entire city with renewable energy by 2035. The city signed an agreement with electric utility Evergy later that year to power about 98% of all energy use for municipal facilities from wind. The City Commission also voted in 2021 to incorporate aspects of the Green New Deal into the city plans whenever possible.

Weigel said the other four electric buses scheduled to arrive in 2022 will arrive weekly through mid-May, with one bus scheduled to arrive each week. He said that following a training period for transit staff, which should be complete by the end of May, the transit service will begin testing the buses incrementally on various routes before ultimately bringing them into full service. He said all five buses should be in service full-time by Aug. 1 at the latest.

Weigel said the electric buses join other upcoming improvements to the transit service, including the construction of the city’s new bus station, improvements to bus stops, and a one-year pilot of free transit services in 2023 supported by federal stimulus funds.

“We obviously hope this change encourages more people to use transit for some trips, and the noise and emission reduction benefits us all,” Weigel said.

He said the city is planning an unveiling event, likely in June, for the new electric buses, and details will be announced at a later date.

photo by: City of Lawrence contributed

A close-up of Lawrence’s first electric bus, which was delivered on April 21, 2022.