DesignLine Buses Back Home in NYC

(Image from nytimes.com)
On a local note, for me, I am glad to see some small steps made by my home city. NYC has created even newer buses to be used throughout the city. These new buses, while expensive (around 560k each), are more energy efficient and environmentally friendly, and add a nice plus of being totally silent. I am yet to ride on one, but I will be sure to travel on one as I visit the tree, in Rockefeller Center, this coming Christmas.

These buses do not come with a performance deficit, which may be a concern for many with "green" machines and vehicles: “I never drove anything that accelerates like this,” Mr. Sollecito, who has driven city buses for 15 years, said approvingly, as the bus glided along the street jerk-free."

"Silence, that rare commodity on the city streets, is achieved by throwing out the most basic element of automobile design: internal combustion. Instead of a noisy, piston-based engine, the DesignLine operates on a spinning turbine that recharges a lithium-ion battery, a green energy source more commonly found inside laptop computers. That means fewer moving parts, and fewer ways to create a racket."

I am shocked that these buses can be using a Lithium-ion battery, I had no idea of the potential power of battery sources, to power a large, heavy bus seems almost absurd to me. The battery recharges every time the driver hits the brakes, and with traffic in the city, this is a great feature.

"Maria Principe, an Upper East Sider, took a seat near the front after boarding just north of 42nd Street, where she had been shopping at Willner Chemists, an upscale pharmacy. “It feels like the air is cleaner, lighter,” she said" - These buses if mass-produced throughout the city and eventually the country can make a significant reduction in our country's carbon emissions.

Carbon Emission from Cars:

"About 33% of U.S carbon dioxide emissions comes from the burning of gasoline in internal-combustion engines of cars and light trucks (minivans, sport utility vehicles, pick-up trucks, and jeeps)" -www.ecobridge.org

These are the kinds of small changes that will add up. Maybe if buses were more quiet, comfortable, cheaper to ride, and energy and environmentally friendly, then more people would use public transportation and ditch the one-person-one-car standard we currently have in this country.


Reference:

1.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/nyregion/07bus.html?ref=earth

2.http://www.ecobridge.org/