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Today, the Obama Administration announced plans to fork over $6-plus million to AC Transit of Hayward, "to help reduce global warming, lessen America’s dependence on oil and create green jobs." The funds come from the Economic Recovery Act, and will be yet another boon to the growing eco-industry in the Bay Area.
"AC Transit is showing how investing in green transportation not only helps the planet and strengthens our economy, but also creates jobs here in the Bay Area," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
The East Bay-based agency plans to use the $6.4 million booty to install several solar panels at its central maintenance facility in Hayward. And, according to the U.S Department of Transportation, this solar installation, along with AC Transit’s current solar capacity, "will produce the enough renewable electricity to generate 180 kilograms of 'green' hydrogen per day."
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How about preventing service cuts? That's a lot more green (reducing car trips) than some completely symbolic solar panels.
Word. Green jobs? How about "Bus Driver"
Okay, so they're spending $6 million and they'll be generating 400 pounds of hydrogen every day. What for? The AC Transit zeppelin?
AC Transit runs several zero-emissions, hydrogen fuel-cell buses. It may seem kind of gimmicky, but they are very cool and run very quietly.
On-site, solar-powered hydrogen generation seems like a very forward-thinking way to go. Seeing as how transit agencies are barred from spending stimulus dollars on operations (pretty stupid, I know), this doesn't seem like such a bad use of these targeted funds.
Signal pre-empts would be a whole lot better for service.
I agree. I got the feeling from the post, however, that these funds were designated for "green" improvements in the flashy, solar-panel sense of the word. Unfortunately, there's no link-back to an article elucidating this issue.
I fully agree that less sexy transpo improvements could have a more significantly positive eco/transit impact; much in the same way LEED certification is no replacement for simply building more compactly. Nevertheless, if it was a choice between this sort of project or nothing at all, better to go for the dough. Just trying to find the silver lining, if there's one to be found.
Unfortunately operating costs are not covered by the Feds. Only capital costs. This is causing huge problems with some transit agencies where they have received money for new buses (capital costs) but not for the drivers to drive them (operating costs). This means that some buses just sit around not being used. I've even heard of agencies selling their buses so that they can get money to pay for drivers.
So in the end you end up with solar panels instead of bus service.
The problem is that one-time stimulus money isn't really going to help transit agencies in the long run. Tiny projects like this generate headlines and allow legislators talk about how they are helping transit while quietly chopping real amounts of money from ongoing funding for operating and maintenance costs.