NYC buys 180 electric school buses, needs 4,700 more to hit all-battery goal

New York City will put 180 new electric school buses on its roads thanks to a $61 million federal grant, Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday.

“We’re replacing dirty diesel school buses with clean electric ones,” Adams said. “Because, when students step on board New York City’s yellow school buses, they are stepping into the future – and it should be a healthy future.”

Adams said the grant would quadruple the number of electric school buses in the city’s fleet, but officials still have a long way to go to meet the city’s climate goal to convert all 5,000 of its school buses to electric power by 2035.

In November, an expert told Gothamist it would cost $5 billion to electrify all city school buses.

Adams also announced $15 million in federal funding for a new electric charging depot at Hunts Point terminal market for freight trucks. The depot will be the first in the nation, Adams said, and will serve 7,000 trucks a year.

“This grant will allow us to put more electric vehicles in our streets and take thousands of pounds of CO2 out of our air,” Adams said.

In 2022, the MTA’s environmental assessment of congestion pricing predicted the Manhattan tolls could divert more trucks onto the Cross Bronx Expressway, through the South Bronx. The South Bronx has some of the highest death and disease rates from asthma in the country.

Adams said the depot will “help undo a long history of environmental racism” in the area. The mayor credited President Joe Biden for the funding from the federal infrastructure act.