Greater Moncton is getting 10 new 40-foot diesel Codiac Transpo buses.

The $7.2-million purchase was recently approved by Moncton City Council.

• Five urban transit buses from NovaBus for Dieppe at a total purchase price of $3.6 million plus HST
• One urban transit bus from NovaBus on behalf of the Town of Riverview for $720,000 plus HST
• Four urban transit buses from NovaBus for the City of Moncton at a total cost of $2.88 million plus HST

Councillor Brian Bourgeois questioned why the purchase is for diesel and not zero emission.

“Could you give us an overview of how many years before we expect to flip? We are buying new diesel buses that will be on the books for 10, 12, 15 years maybe,” says Bourgeois.

Codiac Transpo Director Angela Allain says they currently have a procurement underway for two zero-emission buses which will be 100 per cent battery-electric, and they expect they will arrive by 2026.

“The current fleet is strained. We have all diesel buses currently and we have them all in use. We have a lot more passenger demand and we have old buses. Some of these are over 20 years old, and they have over a million kilometres on them. So it’s just time,” Allain says.

She adds that the challenge with zero-emission buses is the charging infrastructure they need.

“We cannot bring ten electric buses in and plug them into the current transit garage that we have on Millennium Boulevard. It doesn’t have enough power.”

She says the plan is as these diesel buses age, they will replace them with zero-emission, better electric or hydrogen, or some other clean fuel alternative or renewable alternative.

Allain expects it could be another 15 years before buses are almost all zero emission. She also feels a lot has to happen in the way of funding from the province and federal governments as they move towards new technology, but she doesn’t feel the city is behind any others.

“I think this is a place where most transit systems are in Canada,” says Allain.