Running on rubber tires like a bus, but drawing electricity from dual overhead copper wires, these clean, quiet vehicles burn no diesel fuel whatsoever. | Photo: Nathaniel PopkinĮlectric trolleybuses–often in Philadelphia called trackless trolleys–are a great source of civic pride in several notable cities. The Route 59 electric trolleybus runs on Castor and Bustleton Aves. But Diggs’s retirement gives many Philadelphia transit advocates hope that instead of greenwashing hybrid diesel buses, SEPTA might change course and embrace its rather considerable history of employing the much quieter and emission-free electric trolleybuses–a true path to sustainability. The retirement last month of SEPTA assistant general manager Luther Diggs, a powerful administrator who has been behind the shift away from trolleys, was punctuated by the final removal of the electric wires that for decades-long electric powered Erie Avenue route 56, which went “temporary bus” in 1992. This shift belies the direction that dozens of other transit agencies in the US and around the world are taking away from diesel and hybrid diesel toward cleaner and more progressive electric-powered vehicles. Recently, SEPTA’s PR department has been engaged in a full court press, trying to convince us that hybrid diesel transit buses, which are powered by a combination of diesel fuel and a charging battery, are “green.” Cute graphics applied to hybrid diesel buses inform us of “cleaner emissions for a happier earth.” The investment in the hybrid buses and the marketing campaign to go with them has born fruit–SEPTA this year was awarded a Gold Recognition, by the American Public Transit Association, one of two major APTA awards the agency received this year.īut the PR–and the award–mask a serious policy shift inside the agency away from relatively clean electric-powered streetcars and electric trolley buses and toward a dirty all diesel bus fleet (no matter what the ads say). Editor’s Note: Hidden City Daily frequent contributor Mike Szilagyi is also the editor of the website Philadelphia Trolley Tracks, which he founded in 1996, and a streetcar advocate.
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