August 28, 2013
(ALBANY) – The Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) Board of Directors approved a resolution at yesterday’s meeting to move forward on a strategic fleet financing plan for the purchase of 15 regular route buses from the Gillig Corporation. CDTA will solicit proposals from institutions for interest rates on a 10-year financial arrangement for up to $6.9 million with the FY2014 capital budget including an annual payment of $825,000. The selection will be based on the lowest rate and/or the best terms for CDTA.
“It makes financial sense for us to take advantage of current interest rates at historic lows,” said CDTA Chairman David Stackrow. “This move will allow us to build our capital funds to use for a bus order in FY2015, which will provide substantial savings from fewer high repair costs that are typical of aging buses.”
Ten buses were delivered to CDTA this week, fulfilling half of the FY2014 bus order. Four of the ten buses received are hybrid diesel electric buses, bringing the percentage of hybrids in the fleet to 30%. The remaining vehicles are expected to be delivered to CDTA later this year.
With over 2 million gallons of diesel fuel purchased annually, the addition of more hybrid vehicles provides extensive fuel savings for CDTA. Hybrids get 6 miles per gallon compared with 4 miles per gallon for buses fueled strictly by clean diesel fuel.
CDTA has over 300 vehicles in its fleet, a third of which are fixed route vehicles. Ridership continues to grow with CDTA seeing more than 1.2 million boardings on CDTA buses, an increase of 5% from last July and on par to exceed 16 million for FY2014 at this time.
Board of Directors meets on the final Wednesday of every month at the Rensselaer Rail Station. Board meetings are open to the public and streamed live at www.cdta.org.
