Letter to the editor: Electric bus bust in OC Transpo’s future?

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ELECTRIC BUS BUST?

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With the City of Ottawa in the process of purchasing 350 electric buses, let’s hope it conducted far better due diligence than it did on past costly projects.

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The City of Edmonton has had nothing but problems with its electric buses. It is now suing the manufacturers of its electric buses for $82 million. Philadelphia’s electric bus green experiment ended with these vehicles now just gathering dust at the bus depot. In Alaska, mechanical problems have knocked out electric bus services and weak battery performance has resulted in limited route coverage by these buses. As transit agencies across America embrace electric buses, disappointment has followed.

The Hertz CEO just resigned after he purchased a large number of EVs that nobody wanted to rent and that proved extremely expensive to maintain.

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EVs do not operate well in extremely cold weather, use much more electricity, and mileage obtained is diminished. What will be the impact on the electrical grid of adding such a large fleet of electric buses in Ottawa? Will this just be another costly and disastrous going-green adventure?

LARRY COMEAU
OTTAWA

NO CARBON CAPE?

Re: Three-day anime convention kicks off in Ottawa, online, March 29

What a missed opportunity by our world climate-change prime minister. He could have appeared at Anime Ottawa dressed in his carbon cape and fighting evil coal mines in China and beyond! He could have even brought along his longtime family friend and ski hill chauffeur, former governor general David Johnston, disguised in his special rapporteur costume. And let us not forget Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, the Gandalf of horse and buggy technology, flying around the globe in his carbon-guzzling jet to attend any conference!

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EDDY DIGNAN
ROCKLAND

NO GOLDEN CURLING COVERAGE

Re: An amazing rink, letter to the editor, online, March 31

I agree with letter writer Larry Comeau about the lack of adequate reporting on women’s world curling. I, along with thousands of Ottawa curlers, was quite displeased about how the media showed disrespect to the team of Rachel Homan, who happens to represent Ottawa, by the limited reporting of its first-place success (gold medal) at the world level.

DON DAY
OTTAWA

HAVE YOUR SAY

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