Politics & Government

Labor Secretary Plugs Hybrid Transit

VTA showcases diesel electric hybrid bus, while U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis promises the economy will improve.

Who knew the Valley Transportation Authority had low-emission, American-made diesel electric hybrid buses rolling around our neighborhoods that are friendly to the environment?

On Thursday, the agency showed off its green technology program to U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who lauded the VTA's efforts to increase its fleet of 90 such vehicles to eventually replace all of its 500 buses.

Although just 18 percent of the agency's coaches are diesel electric, VTA hopes to eventually phase them out completely with hybrids and full electric plug-ins, said Russell A. Anderson, VTA's supervisor of maintenance training.

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Solis toured the agency's San Jose operating division to better understand the technology made possible through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) money.

"They're [hybrid buses] just as clean as automobiles going down the road," Anderson said. "You used to see diesel buses smoke, now that's gone ... all the soot is captured in the filter."  

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The other positive announcement for the clean technology made Thursday is that the company that's built the 90 buses, Gillig, is based in Hayward. Each engine costs about $33,000, Anderson added. 

Doug Bloch, political director for the Teamsters Joint Council No. 7 in the Bay Area—the workers who assemble the hybrid buses—said that before ARRA, the company was putting out 5,000 buses a year. After the federal money came in, the number jumped up 6,000-7,000 hybrid buses, he said.

"We have a good problem now, and that's that we cannot manufacture buses quick enough," Bloch said.

Solis, who's originally from Los Angeles, one of the most polluted cities in the country, said she understood the technology's importance in its reduction of smog.

Michael Hursh, deputy director of operations for VTA, said the most important thing the public can do to reduce the carbon footprint is take public transportation. "We believe that the future in public transit is an electric bus and that's why we went hybrid," Hursh said. "We're seeing a 15 percent fuel-saving economy with these buses."

Hursh predicted it would take between eight and 10 years for VTA's entire fleet to go full plug-in.

While pleased to learn more about the clean technology, Solis acknowledged to the crowd that the nation's unemployment rate of 9.2 percent continues to lag on. "These are hard times for all of us ... the economy is really rough right now," she conceded to several VTA workers who said they had left jobs at Cisco and other high tech companies and now work as bus operators.

However, she said, during the past 15 months, the nation has added 2.2 million private sector jobs. "This economy will come back ... but we need to see more jobs," she said.

Solis said as she travels around the country she continues to hear stories of people who can't find work, with many being unemployed for months and even years.

Sympathizing with the workers' hardship tales, Solis recounted how her father worked at a battery recycling plant to provide a better life for a family of six children. 

Mike Calise, co-founder of EVadvise and new director of EV Business at the energy-management behemoth, Schneider Electric, said he was pleased to hear of VTA's hybrid bus program and added that any incentives for Silicon Valley clean technology are well justified, because the investment has a double benefit.

"Cleantech is a new business, and it delivers [a] double positive impact," he said. "The irony of Silicon Valley is that great technologies make traditional companies more productive, but that sometimes comes with replacement of workforce."

Calise said the U.S. Labor Department can help by educating and training the working class on this trend to align the right skill sets to support clean tech’s growth and assist individuals who are crossing over and finding jobs.

"This is the hub of renewable energy and ... you need to be saluted for this," Solis said. "This technology is real ... people can get into these industries and help lower our dependency on foreign oil and clean up the environment."


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