New electrical bus for Brawley students
Brawley Elementary School District unveiled a new electrical bus today. It’s the first of its kind in the district and Imperial County.
The district’s maintenance, operations, and transportation department, bought the electrical bus with grant money from the California Climate Investment Program.
The program is a statewide initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“California is leading the nation in green initiatives and electric vehicles especially,” said Andrew Bish, Motiv Power Systems sales representative.
“Everything we do we do it for the kids. It’s clean air for the students,” said Freddy Cornejo, manager of maintenance, operations, and transportation.
The school bus replacement program, is hoping to replace old diesel school buses that pollute the air quality and contribute to asthma problems for students.
“When the children are on the bus and the windows are open, even when the windows are closed there is still some of that diesel and gasoline fumes going in the bus, which is unhealthy for the children,” Bish said.
Cornejo says most of their school buses are running on twenty plus years.
The electrical bus is fully upgraded and seats forty children.
“The kids are excited, its got a back up camera, security cameras inside of it, and air conditioning. The most important is that it’s clean,” Cornejo said.
Brawley Elementary School District will be adding two more electrical buses by the end of the year. They hope to eventually have a fleet of six electrical buses.
