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The environment desk at Aspen Public Radio covers issues in the Roaring Fork Valley and throughout the state of Colorado including water use and quality, impact of recreation, population growth and oil and gas development. APR’s Environment Reporter is Elizabeth Stewart-Severy.

Aspen officials eye electric buses

Elizabeth Stewart-Severy/Aspen Public Radio News

A busload of elected officials took a spin around Aspen to check out new transit technology on Tuesday.

The city government is due to replace four buses on local routes in the next three or four years and is thinking of going electric. County commissioners joined City Council members on a lap around the Hunter Creek bus route to check out a potential model.

An electric bus goes for about $750,000, plus an additional several hundred thousand for chargers.

Credit Elizabeth Stewart-Severy/Aspen Public Radio News
Government officials checked out an electric bus on Tuesday afternoon.

John Krueger, the city’s transportation director, said there are grants and leasing opportunities that could reduce those costs, and the city would save on maintenance and gas.

“The upfront cost would be about the same as a diesel, and then over the life of the bus, it’d be less than that,” Krueger said.  

Krueger plans to meet with several more electric bus manufacturers in the next couple of months, but riders wouldn’t see the new technology on the roads until about 2020.

 

Aspen native Elizabeth Stewart-Severy is excited to be making a return to both the Red Brick, where she attended kindergarten, and the field of journalism. She has spent her entire life playing in the mountains and rivers around Aspen, and is thrilled to be reporting about all things environmental in this special place. She attended the University of Colorado with a Boettcher Scholarship, and graduated as the top student from the School of Journalism in 2006. Her lifelong love of hockey lead to a stint working for the Colorado Avalanche, and she still plays in local leagues and coaches the Aspen Junior Hockey U-19 girls.