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A local coalition is speeding up electrification efforts.
The school bus is a wholesome emblem of childhood, but it’s not as innocent as it may seem — it actually exposes the students inside it to dangerous exhaust. Counties across the U.S. are gradually swapping out their polluting, fossil-fuel-powered school buses for electric alternatives. In Los Angeles, the U.S. city with the worst air quality, nonprofits, school district officials, and families are banding together to electrify the school bus fleet in an effort to clean up LA’s air, reduce climate-warming emissions, and prevent children from exposure to noxious exhaust on their way to school.
As of December 2022 there were 5,612 committed (which means in operation, ordered, delivered, or awarded) electric school buses in the United States, according to data from the World Resources Institute. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has eleven electric school buses currently in service and is on track to have 151 by July 2024, thanks in part to efforts led by groups like The LA County Electric Truck and Bus Coalition. Just this May, LAUSD committed to electrify the Sun Valley Bus Yard by 2026, which will involve the purchase of 180 new electric school buses.
LAUSD passed a resolution in 2019 committing to electrify its entire school bus fleet by 2040. The LA County Electric Bus and Truck Coalition, however, is trying to move that goalpost to 2035 and persuade the district to purchase 200 new electric school buses by 2025. In the wake of recent successes, they are optimistic.
Adrian Martinez, Deputy Managing Attorney with Earthjustice’s Right to Zero Campaign and a co-founder of The LA County Electric Truck and Bus Coalition, has been working on air quality and electrification issues for over two decades. Recently, Martinez says, he’s seen a shift in LAUSD’s prioritization of electric school bus adoption. “Our coalition has been working to engage LAUSD for a little while now, and I think we're starting to get a lot of traction, because there's now a recognition that electric school buses are the future,” he says.
Since the coalition was founded in 2018, they have met with superintendents and LAUSD Board of Education officials to encourage action, launched campaigns, held panel discussions, and facilitated community involvement in advocating for zero-emissions transit solutions. Members of the organization include Earthjustice and the Sierra Club. Earthjustice, on its website, offers a template for community members to send a letter to the LAUSD Superintendent and the Board of Education to petition them to switch to an all-electric fleet.
The coalition has been involved in a number of breakthroughs on these issues, including working with Mayor Garcetti to purchase 155 electric city buses. In addition, the coalition hosted a panel during which the LA Sanitation Department committed to a 100% electric refuse truck fleet.
While the coalition covers a range of transit electrification issues, Martinez sees school bus electrification as a priority because of the young passengers these vehicles carry. “Proximity matters,” Martinez told me. “These are vehicles that are taking our kids to school, and children are particularly susceptible to the impacts of air pollution.”
Nationally, the recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act was a boon for school bus electrification efforts. The IRA includes $5 billion in subsidies for low and zero emission school buses, to be distributed over the next five years. In a panel discussion hosted by the coalition in May, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator Martha Guzman said that now that these subsidies are available, the EPA’s priority is to get funding applications into schools.
Electrification efforts have been a long battle, and transforming the school busing system will involve working with electric utility companies and developing a charging infrastructure. “You're changing the whole operation of your fleet, so it's going to be a daunting task,” Martinez says.
But the momentum is moving in the right direction, and it’s happening quickly. “This is a historic time,” Martinez says. “We're seeing record deployments of electric school buses right now.”
If the coalition gets its way, the next generation of LA students will be riding into the future on clean, green buses.
