LA Metro bus fleet now diesel free

L.A. Metro's bus fleet is now diesel-free. The transportation agency retired its last diesel-belching bus at a ceremony Wednesday morning.

"All right, take it away," L.A. County Supervisor Don Knabe said at an event that was short on nostalgia.

Knabe, the current chairman of the Metro Board, waved a green flag as a tow truck hauled the white bus away. In its place rolled one of L.A. Metro's 2,200 buses powered by compressed natural gas.

Knabe reflected on the long haul to this moment. "We started this back in 1993. People told us we were nuts, and people said you can’t throw out 2,200 buses, which we knew we couldn’t."

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Metro accomplished that a few buses at a time, as its own budget and federal grants allowed. The agency tried other alternative fuels along the way – methanol and ethanol – but eventually it settled on compressed natural gas.

Metro chief executive Art Leahy said the board of directors led the transportation authority, and others that followed, down an uncharted road.

"They were really ahead of the pack," Leahy said. "Because they were worried about importing foreign fuel. They were worried about health issues, sustainability. This was 17 years ago. Long before those issues became current with the public."

Now, Metro is the first major transit agency in the country to operate only alternative clean fueled buses – and those buses help prevent more than 300,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions a day from entering the atmosphere. Leahy said you can see the difference.

"You know, I went to Cal State L.A. in the '70s," he said, "and from the the campus of Cal State L.A., you could not see the San Gabriel Mountains. Here we are in downtown L.A., and you can see Mt. Gorgonio and Mt. Baldy over there. How much is that worth?"

Update at 3 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2011: On some of its smaller, low-ridership bus routes, the public transit agency contracts with private companies. Out of 187 private buses, 82 run on diesel. Metro owns those buses, but its employees don,t operate or maintain them. But the agency is phasing them out and buying new compressed natural gas buses to replace them . METRO officials say that should be done by 2014.