It's time to rev up electrification of York Region school buses
- David Hawkins
- Sep 11
- 4 min read
With diesel exhaust linked to cancer and respiratory illness, let's encourage Ontario government to accelerate the shift toward an all-electric fleet of school buses.
York Region's climate action goal is a fully electric bus fleet by 2050. That target has to include school buses. The sooner the better.
With September here and school routines re-established, the collegial work of knowledge building in York Region District School Board and York Catholic District School Board schools reaches pace. School days ought to be filled with positive momentum, challenges faced, problems tackled/solved, personal fulfillment and life-affirming progress attained.
The formative leaders in the learning odyssey are teachers. Administrators and custodial care workers, in immeasurable ways, sustain the edifice of education. Dedicated adults steer the students to destiny's doorstep by daily transporting 56,000 children to York Region schools. Yet all these communities of advancement dwell in a compromised health atmosphere.
Clouds of anthropogenic pollutants surround and enter areas where diesel school buses run.
Barely visible wafts of poisonous chemicals and dangerous microparticles wheeze out of tailpipes to carry sickening emissions into nearby buildings, around the buses and even more inside them. Some kids (adults, too) may have or will get asthma, some will develop other respiratory ailments, many school days will be lost.
Someday, some of those kids as grown-ups may look at life-shortening diseases they have and wonder: why them? How galling for them that we already knew when they were young the ominous links to diesel engine exhaust (DEE) and traffic-related air pollution (TRAP).
DEE and TRAP are both Group 1 carcinogens, meaning strongly associated with certain cancers, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
CANA's local environmental advocacy includes nudging levers of change and encouraging the elected to use their political power to build and reinforce healthy, just and sustainable living for all.
Our political outreach volunteers' requests to meet Newmarket-Aurora MPP Dawn Gallagher Murphy have gone unanswered. We'll report here what comes from pressing our political representative for a timeline on electric school buses when a meeting is eventually convened.
In the meantime, we'll tell you, dear reader, what we'll be saying to her.
We believe disparate sides on societal conflicts have better outcomes working from common ground. Opportunities hidden in challenges are always ours to find.
The economic impacts of school bus electrification are broadly positive and extend across health-care savings, operational cost reductions, job creation, and regional economic growth. Key findings from recent reports and analyses include:
Health-care cost savings: Electrifying school buses can reduce exposure to harmful diesel exhaust, which is linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, leading to significant health-care savings. Ecology Ottawa estimates a single electric school bus could account for $980 a year in total health savings. That's approximately $20 million annual health-care savings as a result of reduced DEE and TRAP-promoted illness in children, and their hospital visits, once Ontario's entire school bus fleet is electrified.
Lowering operating costs: Electric school buses cost about 50 per cent less to maintain than diesel buses. Electricity to power electric school buses costs about 80 per cent less than diesel fuel per kilometre, resulting in more than $10,000 per bus savings per year, according to Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium.
Revenue generation via vehicle-to-grid (V2G): Many electric school buses can participate in V2G programs. Through Ontario government innovation funding, Elocity (1) is setting up bi-directional charging in the province allowing electric vehicles (EVs), and with hope including electric school buses, to feed stored energy back into the grid. This technology generates additional revenue which can also offset electric school buses charging costs.
Job creation and economic output: In Ontario alone, transitioning to electric school buses could create around 13,000 jobs and generate nearly $2 billion in economic output, strengthening local manufacturing and the automotive sector, according to the Pembina Institute.
Climate and environmental benefits: Electrification contributes to greenhouse gas emission reductions, helping provinces and countries meet climate targets. Ecology Ottawa reports one electric school bus reduces greenhouse gas production by 17 tonnes a year. That's 340,000 tonnes a year across Ontario's whole school bus fleet or more than four million tonnes over the aggregate of 12-year lifespans of Ontario's 20,000 school buses.
York Region is actively adding to its transit fleet and expanding on-route battery refilling. Bus depot upgrades will feature solar power for battery charging. When they return, federal and Ontario finance incentives for electric bus acquisition and transit charging ports could stretch further if the infrastructure is shared between public transport and school bus service in York Region.
CANA recommends a transition plan with time-bound targets and regular reporting on government progress toward school bus electrification. Commitment and transparency could help address public perceptions that the Ford government is intent on slow-rolling the transition away from fossil fuels' dangerous changing of climate.
Expanding clean energy production and electric grid infrastructure with a focus on health improvements in air, water and soil quality will net investments, job creation, technological innovation and signal Ontario's rise as the Canadian clean economy leader it should be.
Call your trustee and your MPP and let's start this transition to electric school buses now.
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