New York Times article excerpt, June 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document 28 L+t THE NEW YORK TIMES METRO SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 2002 REGION New York's Bus Cleanup Brings Other Cities On Board By RANDY KENNEDY Two years after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and state lawmakers struck a landmark deal to clean up what comes out ofthe tailpipes of the city's 4,500 buses, the results are beginning to be seen - or more accurately, not seen -around the city. Along Madison Avenue, plied by so many buses that environmental offi- cials installed an air monitor there in the late 1980's to track the high levels of diesel soot, it is now hard to spot a city bus trailing even a modest cloud of black smoke. The reason can be found at a cav- ernous bus garage in the Bronx, where over the last several months transit mechanics and engineers have been completely rebuilding the guts of the city's oldest and most polluting diesel buses, installing cleaner, custom-made engines and placing powerful fiiters on the ex- haust pipes. The improvements to the buses, and New York City Transit's deci- sion in the fall of 2000 to switch to a special ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel, has resulted in a strange situation for transit officials: environmental- ists, the same ones whohounded them relentlessly for years to clean up bus emissions, are actually happy with them now, and seem impressed by the progress the agency has made toward meeting the goals set in Alba- ny to improve the city's air. But more important than that, en- vironmentalists say, is the ripple ef- fect that the agency's actions have had across the country in fights to make other bus fleets more environ- mentally friendly. The authority, as the 800-pound gorilla of the nation's mass transit services, does more than influence other agencies' decisions, transit of- ficials and environmentalists say, It virtually creates its own market for cleaner vehicles and fuels. When the authority agreed to use ultra-low-suifur diesel two years ago, for exampie, it was not widely avall- able in mass quantities in the United States, and the Environmental Pro- tection Agency would not start re- quiring production of it until 2006. New York transit officials, in fact, thought they might have to import it Librado Romero/The New York Times John Walsh, chief of maintenance for M.T.A. buses, right, and William Livingston, assistant chief, with the new, cleaner diesel engines. Turning a soot- belching fleet into a pollution-control role model. from Rotterdam. But when a bus fleet that buys 42 million gallons of fuel a year - as the authority does -decides it wants to start buying ultra-low-sulfur die- sel, it is a good bet that fuel compa- nies will start to produce it, and they amount of soot particles and air- borne sulfur, a component of ozone and smog. But it also makes it possi- ble for the rebuilt New York City buses to use complex exhaust filters, which are about the size of a small keg of beer and are concealed inside the back engine compartment. The filters - which reduce parti- cle emissions even more, making diesel buses almost as clean in many respects as natural gas buses would not work with regular diesel fuel, because the soot particles creat- In turn, this made it easier for other bus fleets around the country to begin using it. Last fall, for exam- ple, the District of Columbla's fleet of 1,400 buses switched, estimating that the change would reduce the amount of particulate matter - tiny, poten- tially dangerous soot particles that can lodge in the lungs - by about 17 *I think the M.T.A.'s commitment to cleaning up its bus fleet has had huge repercussions with virtually ev- ery other large bus fleet in the coun- try," said Richard Kassel, a senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups that pushed hardest for the change. *Itwasprobablymore important than the M.T.A. ever realized. 1 am . now seeing fleets that fought like to change starting to tons per year from the buses. Boston made the switch this year, as did Millard L. Seay, who oversees bus New Jersey Transit. service for New York City Transit, The switchis important notonly said that the agency has continued, because the new fuet reduces the as part of its agreement with the state, to expand its fleet of natural gas buses and those known as hybrid electrics, which use small diesel en- gines to power electric motors at- tached to the wheels. But Mr. Seay added that advances in cleaning diesel emissions have come so rapidly, just in the last two years, that it is not altogether clear which kind of fuel will emerge as the best choice for the environment. Nat- ural gas engines, for instance, stlll produce some carbon dioxide, a sig- nificant greenhouse gas, and nitro- gen oxide, a component ofsmog. So far, the authorityis operating 221 natural gas buses, and plans to increase its fleet to 650. There are only 10 of the hybrid buses onthe road, in a pilot program, but the agency says it will have 125 deliv- ered by the end of thisyear and expects to have 400 by 2000- But the most intense activity now is at a huge repair shop on Zerega Avenue in the Bronx and a smaller. one in East New York, Brooklyn, where mechanics are• rebuilding about seven of the city s oldest buses every week, junking the old engines and installing new 1,110 pound ones with electronic emission controls and pollution filters. John Walsh, the authority's chief bus maintenance ofticer, said that more than 450 of the 572 oldest buses, some with as many as 15 years on the road, have been rebuilt, at a cost of about $85,000 a bus. Newer-buses undergoing routine maintenance are also having filters installed, and work is on schedule to equip every diesel bus with a filter by the end of next year,he said, in keepingwith the agency's agreementwith the state. Surveying the work last week at the Zerega Avenue garage, Mr. Waish pointed to a long row of rusty, dingy-looking engines, the old ones, whichwould soon be bound for the scrapyard, Nearby sat their shiny replacements, customized by the au- thority after a year of research and design, and soon to bolted into the back of a bus. "To me" Mr. Walsh said, Jooking at one of the new motors, they area thing of beauty. But there's noac- counting for taste" NYC-WTC_000143191