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| San Francisco Trolley Bus powered by overhead catenary lines. Photo courtesy of By Pi.1415926535 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64552498 |
I am not a fan of Battery Electric Buses (BEBs) due to their expense and operational difficulties. We need to stop burning stuff that produces greenhouse gases, but we also need to provide the most bus service for the most riders possible.
Buy American mandates for US transit agencies have them in a bind with too few American BEB manufacturers, all of them in and and out of bankruptcy, and difficulty getting repair parts. In fact, many BEBs have been mothballed despite billions spent on them and specialized charging infrastructure.
I had always wondered why we didn't utilize the century-old technology of electric trolley buses powered by electricity from overhead lines (called Catenary). In California, only SF Muni still operates them in 2025.
What is stopping other California agencies like LA Metro from using Trolley Buses? They are cheaper to buy, maintain, power and store. You need fewer of them compared to BEBs, which need to be taken out of service during the day to recharge. Trolley Buses can even be driven off-catenary using small (compared to fully BEBs) on-board batteries.
CEQA happened. In 1970, then governor Ronald Reagan signed the California Environmental Quality Act into law.
CEQA requires that any project needs to be evaluated against the status quo. Criteria include Visual Impact Assessment. Since a landscape with overhead wires always scores lower than the same landscape without overhead wires, you can't install them anywhere that doesn't have them. San Francisco still had overhead wires, so they were able to maintain and upgrade their overhead wires without running into CEQA veto points. Los Angeles once had catenary, but had already removed them by 1970s.
There was no going back--until AB 2503 passed in 2024. Now, electric wires/catenary for buses and trains can be built without running the gauntlet of decades (yes, decades) of CEQA lawsuits.
In May, 2025, we visited Berlin and took articulated electric buses, some that can run hybrid on and off catenary wires. They ran in dedicated bus lanes, often next to wide bike lanes. It was so easy to get around by bus in Berlin. We loved it.
Look at the size of that bike lane!
We rode both German and Polish-built buses, which run on different lines.
Narrower bike lane this time, but that's because road width is tight on a bridge.
I was so impressed with the Solaris hybrid articulated buses. They can run up to 1/3 of the time off-catenary, can recharge while on catenary, and they never need charging during the day. They can move up to 100 people all day without interruptions of service. This means fewer buses serve more people. So cost-effective and clean.
Oh, the 100-passenger bus needs only a 700 kWh battery. Compare that to the Tesla Y's 60-80 kWh to move 1 person around. Saves on material costs, too.
Anyway, they accelerate/deaccelerate smoothly with just a quiet whirr. We really enjoyed sightseeing from inside the buses. I also rode my first double decker bus!
More on Berlin and our April-May Germany trip later. I still need to post pictures of our bicycle cruise on the Mekong Delta in February. My husband jokes that we save carbon by not driving (in Los Angeles!) and avoiding beef, and then blow our carbon budget on international travel. Fair enough.
