February 9, 2023. The Pasadena City Council approved the purchase of two natural gas buses for the city’s fleet, then passed a resolution declaring a local climate emergency and setting a policy goal of completely carbon-free electricity generation by the end of 2030.
“We operate renewable natural gas (RNG). The replacement of the two vehicles in the immediate future would be renewable natural gas,” said Laura Rubio-Cornejo, Pasadena Director of Transportation. “The proposed replacement plan for next year would include nine renewable natural gas vehicles as well as one battery electric. It’s two years after that where we are looking at being able to have the infrastructure in place to be able to support a zero-emission fleet and start that transition in earnest.”
The council approved a recommendation from its Municipal Services Committee, which discussed the city’s current transportation needs balanced against the goal of an eventual carbon-free fleet.
“One of the biggest challenges we have is we don’t have the facility to fuel these buses,” said Vice Mayor Felicia Williams, chair of the committee. “So even if we did buy them, we wouldn’t have access to hydrogen, which is incredibly expensive and expensive to build out. And we wouldn’t have access to the types of chargers we would need for electric buses.”
Renewable natural gas buses were purchased because the city received a state RNG grant to buy that type of vehicle, Rubio-Cornejo said. For buses that run on electricity of other emission-free energy sources, different sources of funding would be required.