Carmageddon: When will Santa Cruz Metro’s new hydrogen buses be road-ready?

Santa Cruz Metro is set to receive 53 new hydrogen fuel-cell buses over the next year as part of the agency’s vision of a zero-emission public transit system. At $87.4 million, it represented the single largest purchase of hydrogen fuel-cell buses in the country when the transit agency voted to move forward with the deal in September 2023. Metro has five hydrogen buses on site currently in testing before they can hit the road. The agency’s CEO, Corey Aldridge, said he hopes to have the first one on the road by late spring. 

So when will the other 48 buses arrive? It turns out that is a moving target. The entire fleet of 53 hydrogen-fuel cell buses that Santa Cruz Metro has on tap isn’t required for the agency to complete an ongoing overhaul of its bus service, but it certainly would make it easier.

The transit agency’s aging fleet prevented it from implementing its final set of Reimagine Metro changes in December, which included increased service to the Route 3 line, running from Broadway Avenue and Seabright Avenue to 17th Avenue and Portola Drive, and the combined route that serves UC Santa Cruz, as well as on Highway 17 during non-peak periods.

Those plans are still on the docket, but not until later this year. The agency hopes to implement the last slate of changes by September. Aldridge told Lookout last week that he hopes to have half of the new hydrogen buses on the road at that time.

He said Metro gets about one or two buses every week or so, and that it typically takes around four months of testing before they are put into service. The lengthy testing process is necessary because the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust, one of the funders of the Metro’s initiative, requires the agency to destroy one of its existing buses before putting a new one on the road, as the trust’s main goal is to cut down the number of gas, propane and diesel vehicles on the road.

“We need the bus that’s going to replace it to be running and functional, because it’ll be a huge challenge otherwise,” Aldridge said.

Adding to the uncertainty, the Canada-based hydrogen bus manufacturer New Flyer has frequently changed its timeline since the buses were first ordered, largely due to supply chain issues. “They’re having issues getting parts. Seats were the most recent thing they were having a hard time getting, so the timeline is being delayed,” said Aldridge. “It seems to change every couple of weeks.”

Beyond the manufacturer’s difficulty receiving parts, Metro is also in the process of figuring out the fueling facilities for the new buses. Aldridge said that although the buses take hydrogen rather than compressed natural gas, which the current fleet runs on, the fueling mechanisms are largely the same and he is “not aware of any extremely expensive infrastructure that would be needed.” 

However, Metro’s maintenance facility will need some changes. Metro will need to modify the facility’s ventilation to allow for the hydrogen gas to escape the space effectively, and install alarms that would alert crews of any gas leaks. 

Aldridge also said that, because not every existing Metro bus will be replaced, the agency needs to keep compressed natural gas fueling stations, too. Currently, the plan is to install a temporary hydrogen fueling station at Metro’s main hub in Santa Cruz while building the permanent station. Once the permanent station is complete, the temporary fuelers will be relocated to South County, where the agency is also looking at funding options for additional maintenance facilities along with the relocated fuelers. However, there are currently few specifics about the cost and other details around that effort.

“We’re just in the back-of-the-napkin stage right now,” said Aldridge.

And just like the delays with Metro’s major service changes, Aldridge expects some bumps in the road with the new buses: “It’s new technology from the bus itself to how it’ll function, and the issues it may have,” he said. “It kind of feels like the Wild West in a lot of ways as we get through this.”

But this isn’t the first time transit systems have dealt with a major shift and it won’t be the last. Aldridge said the shift to electric vehicles over the past decade came with similar unknowns, and compressed natural gas before that, too: “So we’ve just got to work with the kinks.”

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Check out our Carmageddon road project list here. This week, pay particular attention to:

• The on-ramp to southbound Highway 1 from Bay Avenue in Capitola has been closed since late September to allow construction crews to build a new ramp. Drivers can take a detour north on Porter Street to Soquel Drive, then east to Park Avenue, where they can rejoin Highway 1. They may also head south on Bay Avenue to Park Avenue, and rejoin southbound Highway 1 there. Caltrans expects the ramp to reopen on Jan. 31, several months later than initially expected.

• Signage work along northbound and southbound Highway 1 between Bay Avenue and State Park Drive will cause overnight closures of both lanes in each direction. The northbound closures will occur between 9 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. from Tuesday through Thursday. The closures will alternate between lanes, so one lane will be open in each direction at any given time.

• Paving and utility work will close down sections of Highway 9 on Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Those sections are between Western Avenue and Prospect Avenue in Brookdale and Mitchell Drive and Teilh Drive in Redwood Grove.

• In Watsonville, a single lane on Green Valley Road from Holohan Road to Casserly Road is closed for the Multi-Use Trail Improvement Project. Lane closures occur from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Additionally, a single lane is closed on Buena Vista Drive and Ranport Road for overhead tree trimming on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., causing potential delays.

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