Juneau’s Valley Transit Center will soon have a new charging station for the city’s fleet of electric buses.
Construction will begin March 31 and should be completed in mid-July, according to Capital Transit Superintendent Rich Ross.
The city will close the parking lot, restrooms and the public electric vehicle chargers off of Mendenhall Mall Road during installation. Pick-up and drop-off will be temporarily moved to the park & ride lot next door.
The two new chargers will serve seven electric buses that arrived in December. Capital Transit drivers have been using slower chargers at their bus barn on Bentwood Place, which can take six hours to fully power up a bus when it’s dead. The new chargers should cut that time down to two hours, Ross said, and the more convenient location will keep buses on-route longer.
The charging station project is estimated to cost roughly $1.6 million dollars, most of which was provided by the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. The city is covering $160,759.
The first electric bus that Capital Transit tested, made by Proterra, was out of commission for more than a year due to numerous repairs. The new buses were made by a different manufacturer, Gillig, which also made the city’s diesel buses.
Ross said that he was nervous about how the new electric fleet would perform, but so far “these are a completely different animal than that first bus we tried,” he said. “I think it’s a good value for the community.”
All of the new electric buses should be on the road in June, Ross said.
Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Bentwood Place.
