First new MTA electric buses come to Queens
Two new electric buses are ready to hit the streets in Queens and Brooklyn, the MTA announced Tuesday — and 58 more should be in service by the end of the year.
“We have the largest bus fleet in America, what with 6,000 buses,” NYC Transit President Richard Davey said Tuesday, standing before the two new buses in the garage of the Grand Ave. depot in Maspeth.
“We will be transitioning over the coming years to make sure every bus is zero emission across the city,” he said.
The 60 buses were ordered for $64 million in 2021 from manufacturer New Venture — a bill footed by federal dollars from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, transit officials said.
The buses feature regenerative braking and are expected to get between 80-90 miles of range on a charge in typical local service.
The first of the buses, including the pair unveiled Tuesday, will operate on local routes out of the Grand Ave. depot, which is also home to 17 new pantograph chargers. The chargers, which lower a power connection to the roof of parked buses, are meant to ease the logistics of fleetwide charging.
Another 46 such chargers are planned in the coming months for depots around the city, and an on-street charger is being built for MTA buses at the Williamsburg Bridge bus terminal at the span’s Brooklyn side.
The chargers can top a bus off from empty in six hours, said Frank Annicaro, transit’s bus boss.
The 60-bus order consists entirely of 40-foot buses intended for local routes. Sixteen of those buses are slated to go to the Grand Ave. depot, the home base of the B24, B32, B39, B47, B48, B57, B60, B62, and Q59 routes.
A dozen of the new buses will operate out of the Charleston depot on Staten Island, 10 buses will go to the Michael J. Quill depot in Manhattan, and the remaining 22 will be based out of the East New York depot.
MTA brass hope to have a fully electric bus fleet by 2040.
The transit agency put in another order to New Venture last year, buying 205 battery-powered buses for $286 million.
The bulk of that order consists of 187 40-foot electric buses for local service, to be bought for $1.3 million apiece.
Though MTA leadership has expressed reservations over the reliability of the currently available electric articulated buses, 18 of the buses ordered last year are articulated 60-footers. Articulated buses are mainstays of the MTA’s express Select Bus Service routes, including those that run on major crosstown Manhattan streets.
The coming articulated buses will cost the MTA $2.1 million apiece.
In addition to the two buses unveiled Tuesday, the MTA currently runs 15 electric articulated buses out of the Michael J. Quill bus depot in west Midtown.
