photo by: City of Lawrence

A Lawrence Transit electric bus is pictured in this contributed photo.

The wheels of change are bringing more electric buses to the streets of Lawrence.

The City of Lawrence has received a federal grant to purchase electric buses for the third straight year, and is preparing to roll out its first all-electric buses on Monday. In an announcement regarding the award, Transit and Parking Manager Adam Weigel said that the Federal Transit Administration continues to recognize the city’s commitment to its sustainability goals.

“I’m proud of our staff and community for leaning in to this effort so fully, as it will pay off in a big way for this community in noise and pollution reduction,” Weigel said.

The city received an approximately $3.28 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration’s “Low- or No-Emission” grant program for 2022, according to the news release. The grant requires a $1.16 million local match, and will allow the city to purchase four additional electric buses. The city also received the grant in 2020 and 2021, and the latest grant will bring the total number of all-electric buses in the city’s fleet to 11 by 2024. Once the new additions are in place, over half of the buses used for the city’s regular routes will be either partially or entirely electric.

The buses are custom made, and Weigel said the process from grant award to deployment is about two years. The city received its first five electric buses, funded with the help of the 2020 grant, this spring. Once the buses arrived, there was training for transit staff and a testing period.

Weigel said Friday that the buses were receiving their final hardware installations and will be in service starting Monday. He said the city will start them in service on Route 1 for a week or two, monitoring bus, battery, and charger performance, and then begin to deploy them on additional routes.

The buses from the 2021 grant are expected to enter service next summer. Weigel said the four buses from the 2022 grant, which include two full-length buses and two smaller “cutaway” buses, will enter service in 2024. The four new buses, which will reduce direct carbon emissions by 146 tons annually, will move Lawrence Transit closer to its goal of running an entirely zero-emission fleet by 2035.

Currently, the city’s bus fleet consists of 22 cutaway buses for its paratransit service, accessible buses equipped with a wheelchair lift, and 26 buses for its regular, fixed-route service, according to information provided by the city. Apart from the five electric buses that will start covering routes on Monday, the city already has four diesel-electric hybrids. Once the city receives all the electric buses from the 2021 and 2022 grants, the city’s fixed-route fleet will be 54% hybrid or electric and 29% hybrid or electric overall, when including the paratransit vehicles.

The city’s effort to convert its bus fleet to electric buses is in accordance with renewable energy goals set by the Lawrence City Commission. The commission adopted an ordinance in March 2020 that states the city will strive to achieve the use of 100% clean, renewable energy for all electricity in municipal operations by 2025 and all energy sectors citywide by 2035.