Transit electrification fulfils feds’ Throne Speech promises

The recent Throne Speech mapped out a vision for Canada as a 21st-century nation: one that prizes gender equity, a green economy, and puts stock in the value of public transit. It outlined a Canada in which green-energy technologies power a low-carbon economy, green-mobility technologies are developed, and jobs are created by moving people and freight in ways that build communities rather than destroy them. All of this is contributing to a new campaign to create more than a one million jobs and restore employment to pre-pandemic levels. Most importantly, the government has committed to exceeding Canada’s 2030 climate goal and to legislating the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, which will drive investments in clean technologies faster than ever before. The critics are plentiful. Traditionalists are asking about more money for oil and gas. Skeptics are asking where the money for green investments will come from. These naysayers are misreading the Volksgeist and Zeitgeist of this era, and they’re missing the point: Green investments pay for themselves in jobs created, and save taxpayer dollars over the short and long term. Investments in green-mobility technologies are already bearing environmental and economic fruit in Canada through job creation, and saving cities and taxpayers money as municipalities across the country electrify their transit systems using battery-electric-bus technologies that run more cheaply than diesel buses year over year. Many of these products aren’t imported, with Canada already being home to BEB and fuel-cell electric bus manufacturers. Not only that, we are rich in the natural resources, such as nickel and copper, which are needed for building zero-emissions vehicles and batteries. BEBs and FCEBs perform with significantly lower operational costs compared to fossil fuel-powered buses, and they contain fewer mechanical parts, which lowers long-term maintenance costs. Among the scores of examples of these savings, the Chicago Transit Authority reported spending approximately US$54,000 less in annual fuel and maintenance costs for two BEBs, and is committed to full electrification by 2040. Canadian transit systems are starting to report similar savings, with the Toronto Transit Commission, Edmonton Transit and TransLink all starting to see year-over-year savings. The federal government’s commitment to having 5,000 ZEBs on the road by 2024 is a good starting point. But we need to exceed this number to reach the ambitious goals set out in the Throne Speech. Given the cost and complexity of electrifying bus fleets, governments need a pathway from where we are today to to where we want to be by 2030 and 2050. That’s why the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium recently completed a year-long series of national focus groups, interviews, and case-study reviews in partnership with stakeholders and others active in transit electrification. The resulting report, Best Practices and Key Considerations for Transit Electrification and Charging Infrastructure Deployment to Deliver Predictable, Reliable and Cost-Effective Fleet Systems, outlines critical recommendations that will ensure Canada achieves, and ideally surpasses, its goal of 5,000 ZEBs, and succeeds in building the forward-thinking nation envisioned in the Throne Speech. There is the need for systems thinking, not just “bus” thinking. Transit electrification necessitates an overhaul of the transit-energy matrix to integrate new energy generation, distribution, storage, and delivery systems. As of 2020, most Canadian transit agencies still have little experience in partnering with local utilities to deploy innovation projects or deliver on systems electrification. The Canadian government needs to support nationwide physics- and economics-based feasibility studies that model the predicted performance of electric buses in local transit fleets, the actual cost of that electrification based on local electricity and hydrogen fuel costs, and local installation, civil works and maintenance costs over the lifecycle of the vehicles and fuelling infrastructure. From a funding perspective, transit agencies in Canada will require tens of billions of dollars in “green” infrastructure programming to ensure nationwide ZEB conversions by 2050. This level of funding can be justified only if governments stipulate unwavering climate action targets that require municipalities to move toward ZEB systems. Otherwise the costs, technological complexities, labour constraints, and urban-planning requirements associated with ZEB overhauls is likely to delay or prevent action and eliminate Canada’s competitive advantage in this space. Funding to support this massive transit system overhaul will likely need to be generated from taxpayer-supported green-innovation programs, as well as new road-pricing measures. In addition to green funding and road pricing, cities and transit agencies will need to also explore alternative financing and asset maintenance models that might include partnerships with utilities, manufacturers, and banks, such as the Infrastructure Bank of Canada, to develop newly innovative financing models that de-risk products, assets, and ZEB maintenance mechanisms over the next 10 to 18 years. All ZEB systems funded or financed by Canadian taxpayers need to be tracked and logged using telematic systems and the data streams that document the performance of those vehicles, charging systems, energy-storage devices and hydrogen-fuelling systems must be fed into a national ZEB Transit Data Trust accessible by all cities in the country to enable cheaper more cost-efficient transit purchases in the future. This trust would also support financing models by furnishing cities with the power to hold manufacturers to account with punitive payment measures should ZEB technologies fail to perform as promised. Financially stable transit systems create job opportunities throughout society, with the shift towards zero-emission buses making Canada more competitive in the growing global low-carbon economy. This shift also attracts innovative and jobs-rich companies, many of which already have roots and footprints in this country. According to the Building Back Better Post-COVID-19 Task Force, a group affiliated with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and its UNESCO Chairs network, accelerating the electrification of transit is among the most promising ways to “deliver ecological and economic benefits by building on prevailing political, economic and social conditions.” That’s why CUTRIC’s members put together a five-point plan for building better transit focusing on the development of greener transit systems that support manufacturing innovation and are future-proofed with anti-pandemic technologies. The electrification of Canada's transit systems must continue and accelerate if “building back better” is truly a priority. The Throne Speech described a bold, world-leading nation. Now, let’s build it. Josipa Petrunic is the president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium.