Bus Fleet Renewal
We need to get serious about bus fleet renewal in Edmonton
Edmonton’s bus fleet is made up of almost 1000 buses, these make up the core of our transit service, and keep our City moving. The problem is, by 2030, two thirds of our bus fleet will be over 12 years old (the age at which 81% of North American buses are retired).
ETS will have to retire over 160 buses by 2030, and if they aren’t replaced, that service will be removed from our system. In a recent report, service reductions as a result of retiring fleet could cut Edmonton’s bus service by over 13% if replacement doesn’t keep up. Including significant cuts to DATS service and removal of Community routes which typically serve seniors and mid-day trips.
We absolutely cannot let this happen. If Council does not aggressively pursue bus fleet renewal this 4-year budget, even moderate renewal funding will only be kicking the can further down the road, and letting the problem get bigger as even more buses reach retirement age.
By prioritizing bus renewal this budget cycle, we make our transit system more reliable, less expensive to maintain, and make it easier to grow our fleet and service in the future.
Bus Fleet Growth
We can’t keep up with service without more buses
Edmonton has grown a lot over the past few years, but our bus fleet really hasn’t. This means that as our city continues to grow, we don’t have the buses to send to these new neighbourhoods without taking service away from older parts of our city. We don’t think that good bus service in one corner of our city should come at the expense of good bus service in another.
The lack of buses is a major barrier to improving transit service that we want to see addressed. To do that we need more transit storage and maintenance spaces so that we have the room to grow our fleet, and we want to see the City of Edmonton take every opportunity to buy new buses that don’t just replace our existing fleet, but expand it.