It is recommended that the Commission:

At its meeting of December 16, 1997, the Commission received a November 26, 1997 letter from Ms. Novina Wong, then-Metropolitan Clerk, in which was conveyed a request from the then-Metro Environment and Public Space Committee that the Chief General Manager of the Toronto Transit Commission "submit a report to the appropriate committee of the new City of Toronto Council on the expected date of receipt of clean air buses in the City of Etobicoke, and the routes that will be utilized for such buses." The Commission referred this request to staff for report and requested that "staff include the results of the fleet study that was done in 1993 as it relates to the environmental benefits of the TTC's different vehicle modes."

This report responds to the Commission's request.

In 1993, the Commission directed staff to hire a consultant team to provide a comprehensive technically-sound comparative evaluation of diesel, compressed natural gas (CNG), and state-of-the-art trolley buses. The Bus Technology Study was presented to the Commission in April, 1995, and contained the following conclusions regarding the environmental benefits and costs of different bus modes.

Although both trolley and CNG technology offer air quality improvements over diesel bus technology, the selection of the type of fuel or propulsion used by the TTC has a relatively small effect on the environment because TTC operations contribute less than 0.2% of the overall environmental pollutant concentrations in Toronto. Trolley buses have no tailpipe exhaust emission, although there is pollution at the point of the electrical generating plant which supplies power for trolley buses. State-of-the-art trolley bus technology requires much greater capital investment than an equivalent level of service provided by advanced-technology clean diesel buses. Replacing diesel buses with trolley buses would result in a doubling of capital costs and 10% higher annual operating costs, with total annualized costs increasing by 51%. This additional cost cannot be justified nor afforded by the TTC.

CNG buses produce less vehicle emissions compared to clean diesel buses, in terms of carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, and particulate matter. The TTC has one CNG fuelling station with a maximum fuelling capacity of 125 CNG buses. Each CNG fuelling station costs $2M to $3M, and there is currently no capital funding available for the construction of additional CNG fuelling facilities.

Converting the TTC's bus fleet to "clean" diesel technology is the only affordable means of reducing transit bus-generated pollution, given current capital and operating funding constraints. The TTC's older buses are being replaced by new buses equipped with advanced low-emission engines and electronic control of the diesel fuel injection which reduce exhaust emission. As shown in the following table, the TTC is in the process of incorporating a significant number of new buses into its bus fleet. Further, according to projections for the years 2003 to 2005, after the current five-year capital program, an additional 438 buses in the TTC's fleet will be due for retirement and will likely have to be replaced with new advanced-technology clean-diesel buses during those years.

Procurement of New Buses

The TTC also has in place a six-year and twelve-year bus heavy rebuild program intended to bring the TTC's entire bus fleet up to a class A-1 condition. Under this program, the buses' engines are overhauled and replaced. To date, 440 existing buses have undergone heavy rebuilds, and approximately 250 buses per year are currently going through the heavy rebuild program. This means that, by the end of 1999, approximately 79% of the TTC bus fleet will consist of either new buses or buses which have been rebuilt within the past six years. All of these buses will have significantly-improved vehicle emission performance.

The TTC does not allocate specific buses to specific routes or areas of the city because buses are continually moved or rotated among different garages and repair facilities for regular maintenance, heavy rebuild, replacement of streetcars during track rehabilitation work, temporary relocation during garage reconstruction work, and garage fleet planning purposes. Only the CNG buses are restricted to a specific maintenance facility because only Wilson garage has a CNG fuelling station. Given the many factors which affect the mix and allocation of buses within the TTC fleet, the TTC cannot provide a timetable for the operation of "clean air" buses in the Etobicoke part of the City of Toronto.

If there is a desire to achieve cleaner air in Toronto, efforts should be focused on policies which discourage car use and, instead, encourage transit use, because 99.8% of vehicle-generated emission pollution in Toronto is generated by vehicles other than transit buses.

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11-105-38/80

February 12, 1998

FILENAME: COMREP/CLEANAIR