For almost a year, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert has been advocating that his city go with domestic natural gas as the fuel of choice to power Dallas’s mass transit system. According to the mayor, choosing natural gas would be an outstanding way for the city to brand itself as environmentally friendly and forward-looking. He also recognized that such a decision would have America’s best interests at heart by helping the country to end its addiction to foreign oil.
On Tuesday, Mayor Leppert got his wish. The board of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system voted to solicit bids for 600 new natural gas-powered buses, a fleet that will be at the heart of the city’s next generation of public transportation. No bids will be solicited from diesel manufacturers.
Although the cost of new natural gas-powered fleet was estimated to be more than a similar one running on diesel, the savings from using domestically produced natural gas more than offset the higher cost.
According to the Dallas Morning News, “the vote came two weeks after staff members reversed course from last December, and recommended buying the natural gas buses. They cited falling natural gas prices as the reason they no longer think diesel buses are the best buy, despite more than $100 million in construction funds that will have to be borrowed upfront to pay for the conversion to a natural-gas fleet.”
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