News

On the Road Again: SARTA’s Borrow a Bus Zero-Emission Tour headed for ten-day swing through California

May 28, 2021

After being sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020, the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority’s (SARTA) award-winning Borrow A Bus (BaB) Zero Emission Tour will resume on Friday, May 28, 2021 when one of the transit authority’s state-of-the-art hydrogen fuel cell-powered (HFC) buses is loaded on a trailer and driven cross-country to California where it will make a ten-day swing through the Golden State.

The bus will be fueled by the NICE America mobile submerged pump system now being tested at SARTA’s 1600 Gateway Blvd. headquarters complex in Canton, Ohio before being trailered at 7:00 AM. The media is invited to observe the process. SARTA CEO Kirt Conrad will be available for interviews about the California tour at that time.

“We’re eager to restart BaB because the promotion enables us to make HFC’s part of the discussion about the future of zero emission transportation that has, to this point been dominated by the plug-in electric sector,” Mr. Conrad said.

“Being on the road gives us the opportunity to share the vast amount of data we’ve accumulated and practical experience we’ve gained by operating our HFC fleet on the streets and highways of Stark County in every imaginable type of weather over the past ten years,” he explained. “As a result, we can demonstrate conclusively to transit and government officials that HFC buses offer the range, reliability, and affordability that makes this technology the best zero-emission solution in the transportation space.”

Since making its first trip to the Central Midlands Transit Authority in Columbia, South Carolina in 2019, the BaB tour has visited Washington, D.C., Alexandria, VA., Chicago, Il, Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, and Orlando, FL, Lansing, MI, and New Brunswick, NJ. In 2020 SARTA received the prestigious Calstart Blue Sky Award for BaB. “SARTA is such an evangelist for fuel cell buses that… the transit agency has launched a national promotion that allows other transit agencies to borrow a fuel cell bus …to raise public awareness about and generate support for fuel cell technology. And it’s working–interest has poured in from all over the country,” Calstart President and CEO John Boesel said when he presented the award to Mr. Conrad.

The California swing will begin on June 1 and includes stops in Riverside, West Covina, Hesperia, San Luis Obispo, Stockton, Modesto, San Francisco, Alameda, Sacramento, and Redding where it will be demoed for transit and government officials by Mr. Conrad and representatives of El Dorado National, the company that manufactured the HFC bus that is being showcased. The bus will be transported back to Canton on June 6. A detailed schedule and day-by-day recap of the BaB tour will be posted on SARTA’s Facebook page and website, sartaonline.com.

For more information please contact Kirt Conrad, SARTA CEO, at 330-477-2782 x 522.