More than a dozen new buses and vans added to Santa Cruz Metro

The Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District is getting a revamp, thanks to funding from Measure D and SB 1 they are adding more than a dozen new buses and vans.

Thursday, 18 new vans and clean air buses were rolled out to replace some of the older equipment.

The Santa Cruz Metro said they provide an average of 5 million trips a year.

“80 percent of those people do not have a different or own mode of transportation so they’re dependent on metro service,” said Chairman of Santa Cruz Metro, Bruce McPherson.

Some of the buses being used date back to 1998 making them 20 years old. An average buses life span is only 12 years.

SB1, better known as the gas tax, along with Measure D, a Santa Cruz County sales tax passed in 2016 made getting the new equipment possible.

Now there’s talks of repealing SB1, while it’s not officially on the November ballot yet, many have expressed their dislike of it. Metro says taking that away would be a big setback.

Metro general manager and CEO, Alex Clifford says if it is repealed, “I will struggle with finding the money to replace equipment and I will be running older equipment, older and older equipment which unfortunately will break down, will make our services less dependable and we won’t’ be able to do the things that we do at this agency and we promise the customers that we will deliver to them which is on time service.”

Metro employees say they will be getting six more clean air buses and four electric buses early in 2019.

The California Air Resources Board wants Metro to be 100 percent electric bus by 2040.

KION was told there will also be a proposition on the ballot called Prob 69 which would make sure money that is targeted to go towards transportation would actually go there.