Here is the 3rd video in our 4-part series of last week’s interview of TriMet’s General Manager, Neil McFarlane. As with the previous segments, this too features your suggested questions.
Today, we address the broad topic of “Vehicles”, not just fuel types and propulsion, or articulated and double-decker, but also planning for Bus Rapid Transit corridors.
3 responses to “Your Questions for Neil, “Round 4”, Part 3 – Vehicles”
Ah yes, Neils grandiose expansion plans.
The place is going bankrupt but that never stopped a career tax funded bureaucrat.
Ugh. The way to get off diesel is not to switch to natural gas; that still produces GHG and other pollutants. The push for biodiesel is a good interim step on the way to full electrification of the fleet, whether it be by electric trolleybuses, switching to streetcars on more routes, or the battery-electric buses Neil discusses; indeed, electric buses may be made much more competitive, not by installing chargers just at the end of the route, but by placing inductive chargers along the mall and at other stops where the bus tends to have predictable dwell time. This technology is likely to become available over the next few years; prototypes and first-generation systems are already appearing: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/03/wireless-charging-bus-germany/
Count me in as a fan of CNG. It may be a fossil fuel, but it releases a fraction of the GHG as diesel per unit of energy. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.