How Small Cities Can Lead in Electrification

A transit operator in a desert community north of Los Angeles "celebrated a milestone last month no other transit agency in the country can claim: the first fleet to be fully electrified, hitting its zero-emission goal a full 18 years earlier than scheduled." As Alissa Walker reports, the Antelope Valley Transit Authority now boasts 77 electric buses and ten electric microtransit vans.

While big-city transit agencies are still years or decades away from electrifying their fleets — the MTA is aiming for full electrification by 2040; L.A. County’s Metro is hoping for 2030 — the Antelope Valley, a region of about 450,000 people, got there long before anyone else.

According to Walker, "There are hundreds of midsize cities like these across the U.S., and this is where the electrification revolution can start. The big cities will be the ones playing catch-up."

AVTA's success story, Walker says, provides a "glimpse at what's possible" as more federal and state funding is directed to electrification efforts. "In California, a majority of the people who have access to electric vehicles live in a handful of wealthy Zip Codes. What’s happening in the Antelope Valley flips that, delivering electrification to the communities severed by trucking routes and suffering from bad air."