Mayor Domenic J. Sarno joined with Superintendent Sonia Dinnall and U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, to announce the grant that will allow the city to start replacing its fleet of 145 of its standard-size buses with the electric buses that are more environmentally friendly but cost more than twice the amount of a diesel bus.
“Springfield has one of the highest asthma ratesin the country and diesel buses are the most polluting,” said Patrick Roach, chief financial and operations director for the school department.
That means fewer buses will be spewing fumes when they load and unload children near their homes and there will be less exhaust released near schools as buses idle to let children get on or off the buses, he said.
While the price of fueling the buses will pretty much be the same, the cost of school bus transportation, which is a budget-busting $42 million a year and comes with no state funding, is expected to be reduced, Sarno said.
Superintendent Sonia Dinnall, who started her career as an eighth-grade science teacher in the city, said she remembers teaching about the environment to her students.
“We know that doing what we can to reduce emissions is critical,” she said. “As we educate them (students) about their responsibility to the environment this type of support, this type of grant allows us to make it very real to them. Talk about making a real world connection.”
She thanked Neal and Sarno for the grant saying they could not do it without them.
When asked about last week’s fire that burned four electric school buses parked in Wilbraham, Sarno said he is not worried, saying the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority has operated electric buses for as long as two decades with little problem.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation but is not considered suspicious, Wilbraham Fire Department officials said.
“This might help us as far as cutting down that budget buster,” Sarno said, adding he has no objections to either type of vehicle.
The city will work with First Student, the company that is contracted to provide school transportation, to start the conversion to electric vehicles. Roach said First Student has used electric buses at other school districts across the country.
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