OCEAN CITY – Transit officials say they will begin working on a plan for transitioning the resort’s diesel fleet to alternative fuels.
On Tuesday, Transit Manager Rob Shearman told members of the Ocean City Transportation Committee that his department would soon begin developing a transition plan for the town’s bus fleet. While no specific mandate has been placed on local transit systems to move to alternative fuels, he told officials that the town would begin its planning efforts in September.
“I want everyone to be aware we are not under any specific deadline to transition our fleet into alternative fuel,” he said. “But I do think it is a when, not if, proposition, and that we need to be considering what that plan might look like if such a mandate were to come down from the Federal Transit Administration and the Maryland Transit Administration.”
Shearman told the committee this week the federal and state transit agencies had recently released a zero-emissions bus study for Ocean City Transit. That report, according to an email provided to committee members, estimated the switch to total $99 million in capital costs and $1.9 million in annual operating costs.
Shearman, however, said the study did not provide a comparison as to what the town would be spending anyway to maintain its diesel fleet.
“The big thing I want to be able to provide before we talk numbers is what are they proposing in terms of an investment into the system versus what we would be spending anyway,” he said. “That’s where I think the study that was published didn’t really include a good comparison.”
In the meantime, Shearman told committee members that regional planners with the Maryland Transit Administration are encouraging the town’s transit department to begin developing a transition plan for its bus fleet. He said those efforts would begin at a workshop scheduled for next month.
“Nothing that comes out of that will be binding,” he said. “But it will be our opportunity to study what the costs will potentially look like and then we’ll be able to present that to the committee and the council so we can begin to prepare for what we may end up having to do.”
When asked about fuel alternatives, Shearman said the town’s bus fleet was well positioned to transition to electric.
“I do think that opens us up to concerns about emergency evacuation situations and the ability to go long ranges from here to somewhere else, charge our buses and get back,” he said. “So there’s lots of questions to be answered.”
Officials reiterated that the development of a fleet transition plan was simply the beginning of a lengthy process.
“It’s good to be early in those discussions,” said Mayor Rick Meehan. “I just don’t want the public to think this is something we’re going to have to address in the next 60 days.”
