One of 10 natural gas-fueled buses from Orlando, Fla. could be pulling into a nearby stop; the county recently received a fleet of 35-foot buses.
Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) will unveil the 12-year-old buses in early August, renewing its original commitment to using natural re-sources.
CATA currently has 52 natural gas buses on the street, but uses five diesel-fueled vehicles to accommodate increasing ridership.
Because the vehicles are not the larger 40-foot buses that are typically used on routes with heavy traffic, such as the Vairo Boulevard bus or the Blue Loop, they will be used on less-traveled routes, like the bus to Toftrees or Nittany Mall. Riders could see expanded schedules, a CATA official said.
CATA General Manager Hugh Mose learned about the extra buses during a conference nearly two years ago. The fact that they ran on natural gas sparked his interest.
"They finally got to the point late last year where they would essentially give them to us," Mose said. "We just paid to have them repainted and transported here."
Central Florida's Regional Transportation Authority, LYNX, originally purchased the vehicles in 1997, envisioning an alternative, fuel-efficient addition to its fleet. Instead, the authority found itself struggling to keep up with the maintenance and costs of supporting the vehicles.
LYNX spokesman Matt Friedman said the majority of the buses in the system run on diesel gas -- having only 10 buses that were different didn't make sense. Since CATA had expressed an interest in them, the decision was easy.
"It takes a specialized mechanic and different parts than what we had," Friedman said. "In State College, there are mechanics who know how to fix these types of buses and have extra parts."
Most riders won't notice any physical differences in the new vehicles, Mose said. The buses are virtually identical to the rest of the fleet on the outside, he said, and the only real difference was in the upholstery.
However, because the buses are already 12 years old, Mose could only estimate how long they are going to last.
"My guess would be somewhere around five years," he said. "But who knows, it could be longer than that. The important thing is that they will get the diesel ones off the road."
