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VIA To Convert To Compressed Natural Gas Buses

Louisa Jonas
/
Texas Public Radio

VIA Metropolitan Transit debuted several buses on Thursday that use Compressed Natural Gas as fuel. VIA plans to convert to an all CNG fleet of 400 buses by 2020.

 

VIA’s transitioning to the new buses to be more sustainable and to decrease operating costs. The current fleet of buses is 12 to 15 years old. Jeffrey Arndt is President and CEO of VIA. He says the conversion will generate an estimated annual fuel savings of $8.5 million.

“First of all the customers are going to get new buses,” Arndt says. “Should be a bit more reliable, more comfortable, they’re quieter. They will be less expensive for us to fuel. They’ll be less expensive for us to maintain. There's a financial benefit. There’s the environmental benefit. There’s the reduction in the emissions—97% NOx.”

NOx, or nitrogen oxide vehicle emissions, contribute to ground level ozone which is monitored by the state. Arndt says these buses will help San Antonio stay within attainment – or under state-mandated levels.

VIA will replace more than half of its existing fleet by this fall. The conversion will make VIA the largest customer of CPS Energy’s CNG fuel program.

Louisa Jonas is an independent public radio producer, environmental writer, and radio production teacher based in Baltimore. She is thrilled to have been a PRX STEM Story Project recipient for which she produced a piece about periodical cicadas. Her work includes documentaries about spawning horseshoe crabs and migratory shorebirds aired on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. Louisa previously worked as the podcast producer at WYPR 88.1FM in Baltimore. There she created and produced two documentary podcast series: Natural Maryland and Ascending: Baltimore School for the Arts. The Nature Conservancy selected her documentaries for their podcast Nature Stories. She has also produced for the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s Distillations Podcast. Louisa is editor of the book Backyard Carolina: Two Decades of Public Radio Commentary. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her training also includes journalism fellowships from the Science Literacy Project and the Knight Digital Media Center, both in Berkeley, CA. Most recently she received a journalism fellowship through Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where she traveled to Toolik Field Station in Arctic Alaska to study climate change. In addition to her work as an independent producer, she teaches radio production classes at Howard Community College to a great group of budding journalists. She has worked as an environmental educator and canoe instructor but has yet to convince a great blue heron to squawk for her microphone…she remains undeterred.