The Transit Authority of River City is putting 17 new buses into service, replacing about ten-percent of its fleet.TARC Executive Director Barry Barker says the clean diesel buses cost $332,000 each and were purchased with a combination of local, state and federal funds.
Barker says the buses are not as environmentally friendly as the more expensive hybrid vehicles, but get better mileage and emit less pollution than the buses they're replacing."You can buy three of these for the price of two hybrids. We would love to buy nothing but hybrids and we've got nine on order under the stimulus program, but the fact of the matter is that the improvements that we get in mileage, passenger comfort and so forth, is another 50-percent larger here because we're taking that many more buses out of service," Barker said Monday.The new buses also have an updated design (pictured)
