WATSONVILLE — On Sept. 16, METRO will launch a new loop route with one main goal — improving the environment for Watsonville residents by improving their access to transportation.
“Watsonville is a very green city and a lot of the decisions we are making are moving in that way,” Mayor Jimmy Dutra said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the loop Tuesday morning. “The first electric circulator will be happening here in Watsonville and we are very excited.”
The Watsonville Circulator Route, funded by a $489,000 grant from the California Department of Transportation’s Low Carbon Transit Operations Program under the guidance of Caltrans and the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, will serve city stops exclusively. The grant funds three operators who will maneuver battery-electric buses purchased through a previous Low Carbon Transit Operations Program grant seven days a week through all 52 weeks of the year.
For one year, the grant also covers the fares of riders in order to incentivize more individuals from Watsonville to take public transit. This will cut emissions from fossil-fueled buses and single-occupancy vehicles in addition to serving low-income communities in south county.
Next week, the bus will operate in a clockwise loop from Watsonville Transit Center on Rodriguez Street through downtown, hitting retail and medical attractions on Main Street, Green Valley Road, Freedom Centre, Freedom Boulevard and Lincoln Street. According to a press release from METRO, the loop has the ability to connect riders with intercity bus lines such as 69A or 72/72W for further convenience.
The METRO Board of Directors is pleased with the accomplishment of the route, but are not satisfied with replacing just two buses that run its routes with eco-friendly machinery from local manufacturer Proterra.
“Our work is not done. We have a whole fleet to change,” Dutra said. “We need to continue to work to eliminate our carbon footprint here at METRO and in all of our organizations throughout this county. I know that this board and our entire METRO team will do it.”
Watsonville, the example
Dutra shared how telling local stories of individuals who rely on METRO’s services to get to work or vital appointments made it easier to lobby representatives such as Rep. Jimmy Panetta, who was in attendance Tuesday, for clean transportation resources.
“I was able to be the voice for our community when we went out to these places to get the funding so that we could bring it back to offer new buses that are all-electric. This moment for me is really special because there have been a lot of years put into making it happen,” Dutra said.
Panetta, who supported METRO’s application for the route, agreed that both the stories and the successes of environmentally responsible innovations in his district give him ground to fight for policy-wide change.
“Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to Washington D.C… to mark up the major infrastructure package,” he said of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan. “It’s this type of investment I will be working hard to tell the story about because what I want to be able to do is make sure that my legislation, The Green Bus Tax Credit Act, is included in the infrastructure package.”
Panetta said the buses were only made possible by grants due to their expense. His act incentivizes the purchase of these electric buses through significant tax breaks for systems such as METRO. A grant program for the transit agencies is also being considered so that new buses can be acquired and diesel buses can be converted.
“At a cost of, at a minimum, $850,000 apiece, we must continue to find ways to make these (no emission) buses more affordable,” he said. “Ultimately the goal is to ensure that the green buses are cheaper to build, and yes, you bet, cheaper to buy. I believe that’s the least that we can do.”
Panetta told the Sentinel following the ribbon-cutting that he’d like to see a carbon tax included in Build Back Better but he’s unsure whether one is in the cards with the Biden administration.
“We’re making sure that there are other ways to incentivize the decarbonization of our transportation sector of our energy grid,” he said.
There is no option but to move ahead prioritizing the mitigation of climate change, Panetta added during his comments at the podium.
“We’re seeing it (from) Lake Tahoe to Louisiana to Long Island, New York,” he said. “We are seeing that the dangers of climate change are clear and boy, are they present.”
