Big growing pains for TransLink to electrify buses and expand services

TransLink's first new Nova LFSEe+ electric-battery bus being charged at the bus loop at SkyTrain 22nd Street Station. (TransLink)

For years, TransLink has outlined its ambitious plan to transition its bus fleet into battery-electric models for aging fleet replacements and service expansion.

Given the unique infrastructure needs — maintenance, storage, and charging — for such buses, an immense amount of capital investments are required for both acquiring the buses, which carry a higher unit cost than conventional fossil fuel-powered buses, and building their supporting infrastructure.

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TransLink had planned on growing to a battery-electric bus fleet of 155 vehicles by 2025 when the Port Coquitlam Transit Centre bus depot is upgraded and five in-route charging locations are added.

The 2027 completion of the new Marpole Transit Centre bus depot in South Vancouver, located at the southern foot of Cambie Street next to the Canada Line’s North Arm bridge, will be dedicated to serving the needs of 350 additional battery-electric buses.

The updated target last year aims to achieve a battery-electric bus fleet of almost 500 vehicles by 2030.

marpole transit centre vancouver translink electric battery bus

Artistic rendering of the Marpole Transit Centre for battery-electric buses. (TransLink)

This transition as planned is already proving to be a challenge, but TransLink staff told the Mayors’ Council last week they were recently presented with an added curveball by the provincial government, which is considering a new policy that would force both TransLink and BC Transit to accelerate their adoption of zero-emission vehicles.

The proposed provincial Public Transit Zero-Emission Vehicle purchasing policy would align with regulations put in place in California, requiring public transit authorities in the state to have at least 50% of new bus purchases be zero-emission models between 2026 and 2028, and 100% starting in 2029. The entire public transit fleet would also need to reach 41% zero-emission by 2030 and 100% by 2040.

Unlike BC where there are just two public transit authorities, the policy in place in California helps regulate dozens of separate public transit authorities across the state, which has multiple highly fractured public transit authorities within its urban regions.

But both TransLink staff and TransLink’s Mayors’ Council expressed deep concerns that the province’s proposed policy would essentially add to costs, and delay the public transit authority’s ability to meet its goal of expanding bus service by 50% by 2035 through the Transport 2050 plan’s first 10-year priorities.

Due to the charging needs and range limitations of battery-electric buses, it will require 15% more buses to cover the same area served by conventional buses. The range of TransLink’s forthcoming orders of battery-electric buses is up to 150 km.

“Because electric vehicles have lower range than non-electric vehicles in terms of how many kilometres they can drive before needing to be recharged (refuelled), our analysis is that we would need to have more fleet to deliver the same amount of service, which will require more capacity at our transit centres,” said Sarah Ross, the vice president of planning for TransLink, during last week’s Mayors’ Council meeting.

“It does mean that we need even more depot capacity as well at each depot, as you need more space for each bus because of the charging facilities, so that is something that we are building into our plans.”

translink electric battery bus nova bus 100

A Nova Bus battery-electric bus used by TransLink charging at the Marpole bus loop. (TransLink)

Ross says in the near term, TransLink cannot only rely on making fleet acquisitions of only battery-electric buses, and that the public transit authority can still meet its climate goals by diversifying with low-emission bus models, such as renewable natural gas or renewable diesel to replace buses reaching the end of their lifespan over the coming years.

Both TransLink staff and several Mayors’ Council members suggested during the meeting that greenhouse gas reduction targets would be better achieved by focusing on improving public transit service levels, rather than the type of fuel used by the vehicles.

“The public wants services on the roads, they want better service. The type of fuel technology that it is using is not a consideration to them,” said Coquitlam city councillor Brent Asmundson, who retired from serving as a TransLink bus driver after 33 years in 2020.

“The more people we can get taking transit, that would actually have a greater greenhouse gas reduction… I’ve been in this business for a very long, and we’ve left people without the necessary service they need to take transit.”

Asmundson also questioned whether the strategy of diving into electrification is sound, suggesting that “the rush [into transition] has dangers of making a lot of mistakes and not achieving the goals TransLink would like to see.”

“I don’t want us betting on strictly electric,” he said, adding that based on his personal experience, it takes multiple generations to fix issues with new bus models.

Ralf Nielsen, TransLink’s director of enterprise sustainability, said the transition to battery-electric bus fleets requires significant new and expanded bus depots.

This includes major projects to upgrade existing bus depots across the region to equip them with modified maintenance facilities and new charging infrastructure, along with the space needed for storage to accommodate bus fleet growth.

TransLink’s Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot next to the Arthur Laing Bridge for trolley buses. (TransLink)

Nielsen adds that the bus depots are already full with vehicles, and in order to overhaul these facilities to accommodate battery-electric vehicles, they need to free up space at these facilities as the initial step through bus depot expansion.

Nielsen went as far as to suggest the proposed provincial strategy “creates an unintended consequence of increasing greenhouse gas emissions system at large.”

Jeffrey Busby, the vice president of engineering for TransLink, raised a need for municipal governments across the region to streamline their permitting and regulatory approvals for new and improved bus depot facilities, noting that the current timeline to achieve a new bus depot is about six years. Planning is needed for many more bus depots across the region to meet the needs of both battery-electric buses and the 50% increase in bus services regionwide.

TransLink estimates bus depot capacity needs to increase by nearly 90% or an increase of 2,000 additional bus spaces by 2035. Currently, TransLink has a bus fleet size of over 1,500 vehicles.

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