City officials celebrate the award of over $70 million to add electric school buses to the city’s fleet and the creation of an electric vehicle charging hub at Hunts Point Food Distribution Center. Image Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
On March 18, 2024, Mayor Eric Adams announced that New York City received $77 million in grants through the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand the number of electric school buses and trucks citywide and the creation of the nation’s first freight electric vehicle charging hub.
The first grant, a $61.1 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Grant Program will fund the addition of 180 new electric school buses to the city’s fleet. The addition will quadruple the number of electric school buses citywide. Two bus companies – NYC School Bus Umbrella Services and JP Bus and Truck Repair – have been selected to receive the funding. NYC School Bus Umbrella Services will receive $29.5 million for 100 electric buses and 100 chargers citywide. JP Bus and Truck Repair will receive $31.5 million for 80 electric buses that will serve Districts 18, 19, 20 and 21 in Brooklyn.
In addition, the Department of Transportation and the New York City Economic Development Corporation will receive a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to build the country’s first freight-focuses electric truck and vehicle charging depot. The charging depot will be located at the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center in the Bronx. Both fast chargers and regular chargers will be available, and a multipurpose building that will include workforce development programming and a rest area for drivers will also be built. The charging depot will be able to support over 3,000 trucks and 4,000 passenger vehicles annually.
The Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice also received a $1.5 million planning grant to help develop an electric school bus charging infrastructure plan.
These awards are the latest steps in the City’s efforts to have a zero-emission school bus fleet by 2035 and to reduce carbon emissions citywide through PlaNYC, the City’s strategic climate plan. Last year, the city received an $18.3 million grant for 51 electric school buses. Over $1.6 billion in federal funding has been secured to help create sustainable and resilient infrastructure citywide; and earlier this winter, the City Council voted to approve the City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality zoning text amendment, which removes burdensome provisions from the zoning text that inhibit the implementation of green technology, including electric vehicle charging.
Mayor Adams stated, “I have always said that I am a five-borough mayor, and with this funding, we are building an even brighter future for the Bronx and our entire city. These grants will help us put more electric school buses on our streets, turn one of the world’s largest food distribution centers into one of the world’s greenest facilities, deliver cleaner air for our children, and help undo a long history of environmental racism in the South Bronx. This is what it looks like when leaders from City Hall to the halls of Congress work together to ‘Get Stuff Done’ for New York City. My thanks to President Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency, and all our federal partners who helped secure this funding and are working to deliver a cleaner, greener city for New Yorkers.”
Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Executive Director Elijah Hutchinson stated, “Diesel-fueled buses and trucks harm our climate and health, and the pollutants they emit are linked to respiratory illnesses with disproportionately higher rates in Black and Brown communities, which is why we set the ambitious goal of cutting transportation emissions in half by 2030. Getting noisy and polluting trucks off New York City’s streets and electrifying school buses advances our PlaNYC initiatives, while offering health benefits to students and residents of East New York, Canarsie, Sheepshead Bay, and more. This funding will also bring extraordinary benefits to the residents of Hunts Point, 12 percent of whom have asthma — one of the highest rates in the country.”
By: Veronica Rose (Veronica is the Editor of CityLand and a New York Law School graduate, Class of 2018.)