Time to Charge Up Electric Bus Adoption
January 27, 2025
FREDERICTON – Green Party Leader and MLA for Fredericton Lincoln David Coon is urging Premier Holt to make good on her commitment to support municipal transit, following Saint John’s recent announcement it had delayed its plan to purchase two electric buses, and will purchase two diesel buses instead.
“An effective way to fight climate change and reduce the cost of living is to choose transit over driving,” said Coon. “Provincial support for transit operations is essential for municipal governments to be able to improve service and transition from diesel to electric buses.”
Coon is calling on the Holt government to:
- Provide Sustainable Operating Funding: Municipalities that operate transit systems, need consistent and reliable funding from the provincial government to supplement their operations. Public transit is a public service that is crucial to providing affordable transportation, and properly funded, can help ensure New Brunswick meets its climate change commitments.
- Provide Capital Funding to Transition to Electric Buses: New Brunswick’s Climate Change Fund provides $47 million per year to pay for projects to reduce emissions and protect New Brunswickers from climate change. Some money from this fund should be allocated for municipalities to replace diesel buses with electric ones.
“There is plenty of money in the Climate Change Fund to improve transit service in New Brunswick cities and support the conversion of the bus fleets from burning oil to running on batteries. It is time to achieve these important goals,” said Coon.
The New Brunswick Climate Change Fund is supported with revenue from the industrial carbon tax collected by the New Brunswick government.
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