City of Barrie goes green with two new electric transit buses

The City of Barrie is going green with a new pilot project that will roll out two new electric buses and charging stations.

Joint funding of $3.3 million by the federal government and the City will go toward the battery bus project.

"The City of Barrie is committed to reducing Barrie's corporate emissions to net zero by the year 2050," Mayor Alex Nuttall stated in a release on Friday.

"The investment by the federal government will help us move closer to that goal by enabling us to move quicker towards a greener transit system for our community," the mayor added.

The environmentally-friendly fleet will also help the City on the fiscal front.

"Maintenance costs actually go down by about 30 per cent, and that includes also reduction of fuel, and on average, our buses probably do about 50 to 60 thousand dollars a year," said Brent Forsyth, director of transit and parking, City of Barrie.

The City will still have to decide which buses it plans to purchase by the end of the year.

"There is some different options that we can try and test, and a lot of it is going to have to do with weather testing, capacity load testing and testing on different routes throughout the city," said Forsyth.

The City hopes to have the buses on the road early next year with plans of eventually having an entire fleet of electric buses.