News Advisory
Blue Water Area Transportation Commission
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 18, 2008
CONTACT: Jim Wilson, BWATC General Manager, 810.987.7373, ext 103
$4.6 Million Fleet of Buses Arrive from California
To Enhance Services Offered by BWATC
PORT HURON, MI — A fleet of 14 new commercial buses, purchased for $4,640,860 with State and Federal grant funding by the Blue Water Area Transportation Commission (BWATC), are in the process of arriving this month from California. Each 30-foot ElDorado National bus is powered by compressed natural gas (CNG), the low-emission alternative fuel that BWATC started to produce and use in 1996 as a cost-saving measure.
“This purchase moves us closer to meeting our goal to run all of our buses on compressed natural gas,” says Jim Wilson, BWATC General Manager. “We are replacing some diesel buses, as well as some older CNG buses.”
CNG is recognized as an alternative fuel that saves money, contributes to a cleaner environment, and reduces our nation’s dependency on foreign oil.
The new buses will also serve riders along new routes into Macomb County that were started earlier this year with grant funding to help low-income individuals find and keep jobs.
Each of the new buses has a seating capacity of 28 passengers and can accommodate up to three wheelchairs. These buses ride on an air bag suspension with the ability to kneel the bus to seven inches above the ground (approximately at curb level). A wheel chair ramp allows easy access for wheel chairs and the mobility impaired.
BWATC continues a proud tradition of innovation in public transit that has served Port Huron for more than a century. Port Huron was one of the nation’s first communities to operate an electrified transit system in the 1880s and one of the first to operate motor coaches when they became popular in the 1930s. Following an eight-year hiatus, the current bus service began in September 1976. Since then, BWATC has carried more than 19 million riders and continues the tradition of innovation by producing its own compressed natural gas alternative fuel since 1996.
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