San Jose Airport Has Nation's Largest Fleet of All-Electric Buses. So Why is It Still Using Gas?

Nearly two years after city leaders promised to replace every shuttle serving Mineta San Jose International Airport with an all-electric fleet, the majority of the airport bus trips still run on natural gas, data obtained by this news organization revealed.

The conversion of the city’s airport shuttles was supposed to mark the first step toward a highly-touted broader citywide goal of putting an electric engine in every shuttle and bus in San Jose. But about eight months after the airport introduced its first electric fleet with much fanfare, its ambitious plan appears to have sputtered, and the trend actually has moved in the opposite direction.

As the city prepares to evaluate an airport expansion proposal with significant environmental impacts, diversions such as this from year-long clean energy commitments face public scrutiny.

“They need to step up,” Katja Irvin, co-chair of the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter’s Conservation Committee, said about city officials. “We have to stick to our commitments on climate issues. It’s not something we can be weak on any longer.”

City officials in May 2019 celebrated the launch of 10 electric airport shuttles — calling it “the largest fleet of electric buses at any airport in the country.” Mayor Sam Liccardo said at the time that it was an example of how the city was establishing itself as “a leader in combating climate change.”

Although natural gas once was seen as a cleaner fossil fuel alternative, it fails to rival electricity. For instance, the airport estimated that it would reduce its ozone emissions by 1.1 tons — the equivalent of 50 gas-powered passenger vehicles taken off the roads — over ten years by switching over to an electric bus fleet.

And over the first six months, the data might have supported that outlook.

The airport gradually phased out its natural gas engine buses until they contributed to just 6 percent of the airport’s shuttle trip operations. Although the city held onto the old buses, most sat unused on airport grounds.

But then in November, the airport reintroduced some of the natural gas-powered buses back into its fleet. And by December, natural gas-powered shuttles had surpassed electric — now making up 57 percent of trips.

Airport officials trace the shift in fleet makeup back to a decision made in November 2019 to open up about 1,000 employee parking spots close to the terminals and provide them to passengers. Instead of walking across the street from a parking garage to the terminal, airport employees now park in a lot about ten minutes away from the terminals and ride a shuttle to and from work every day.

The airport’s 10 electric buses were not sufficient enough to accommodate the increase in transportation needs for employees, so officials said they were forced to reinstate some of the natural gas-powered buses.

San Jose Airport Commission Chair Dan Connolly, who supported the decision, said it was necessary due to the addition of temporary terminal gates and the construction of a parking garage that put other spaces out of commission recently.

“I think people need to be sensitive that we have people traveling long distances, and I really don’t want to see people stressing about parking at our airport,” Connolly said in an interview Tuesday.

Irvin disagreed, saying that city and airport officials need to think more creatively in order to push public transit and encourage carpooling so the additional parking spots and shuttles would become obsolete.

The airport’s current electric fleet was funded, in part, by a $5 million zero-emissions grant from the Federal Aviation Administration. Hoping to expand the fleet, the city in November submitted another grant application to the FAA for six more electric buses.

“Our focus is still electric, but now we need to focus on how to bring more into operation,” said Rosemary Barnes, the airport’s public information manager.

The number of passengers traveling through San Jose’s airport has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching nearly 15 million passengers last year. And over the next two decades, the city projects that growth to continue by more than 50 percent — up to 22.5 million by 2037.

Bracing for the exponential increase in air travel, the airport is proposing a robust plan to build a concourse with 14 new gates, a 330-room hotel and a 5,000-space parking garage — in addition to a 6,000-space garage currently under construction.

As a consequence, the developments would cause a “significant and unavoidable” amount of ozone and greenhouse gases to spew into the air and would conflict with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s 2017 Clean Air Plan, according to a draft environmental report.

The airport hopes to limit emissions by prohibiting equipment with diesel engines from idling more than two minutes during construction, requiring that heavy off-road equipment meet high emission standards and instructing contractors to submit a plan to the city on how it intends to minimize emissions before beginning any work. It also plans to develop a “phased carbon management program” to track annual carbon emissions from the airport and identify reduction targets, according to the report.

During a City Council discussion last week about the proposal, Liccardo reinforced his interest in utilizing clean energy sources and providing a “national platform for the demonstration of this promising technology as it emerges.”

“We are certainly going to be at the forefront of ensuring that we reduce greenhouse gas emissions for those flights — and for the ground crews of those airlines — by doing everything we can to incentivize and require when necessary the use of electric, hybrid and low-emission fuels,” Liccardo said during last week’s council meeting.

The City Council is expected to vote on the airport development plans at the end of March.

Airport officials say they expect to find out whether they will receive the FAA grant to buy more electric buses by the end of the summer. In the meantime, city officials and residents will have to wait a few more months — or years — before they can truly claim an “all-electric” airport bus fleet.

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