Nearly new 600 buses. A 700-square-mile service area. Almost one-quarter of million daily passengers. That’s the impact of a proposal approved yesterday by the Operations Committee of Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) to convert Dallas’s diesel-powered buses to ones using natural gas. The proposal now goes to the full board for approval in two weeks.
Less than a year ago, DART was considering adding more diesel buses to its fleet, an idea that was loudly booed by Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert as well as Dallas’s own T. Boone Pickens, who lamented on national television that cities and towns everywhere across America were supporting his Pickens Plan. Everywhere, that is, except Dallas. Pickens proved his point by taking a bus ride in neighboring Fort Worth, whose fleet of buses, vans, and trolleys has been running on cleaner burning natural gas since the late 1980s.
In the long run, however, cheaper, cleaner natural gas proved to be the decisive factor in Dallas. According to Victor Burke, DART’s executive vice president of operations, using imported diesel over the next 20 years would cost the transit system $190 million more than fueling with domestic natural gas. This amount more than offset the estimated $142 million in additional costs associated with natural gas-powered buses.
Numerous other factors also contributed to yesterday’s near unanimous vote. According to the Dallas Morning News, Mayor Leppert said “compressed natural gas engines would help give Dallas a cleaner, ‘greener,’ image ….”