City addresses delays with bus retrofits

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This article was published 18/01/2025 (243 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Brandon’s retrofit of its transit fleet is moving forward following the city inviting tenders from companies to refurbish the fleet last September.

“The plan is to retrofit all the current buses,” Troy Tripp, the city’s director of finance, told the Sun Thursday. “I think about five are away being retrofitted right now, and probably the remaining 10 or so will be retrofitted over the next two years.”

Tripp confirmed the retrofit following his budget presentation late Thursday afternoon during the city’s public open house at Brandon City Hall.

The plan, he said, is that the city’s transit fleet will be replaced seven to eight years from now.

“We’re hoping that the retrofit … helps extend the lift of those transit buses, and that will be built into the future costs of ownership for the next transit buses.”

The hope, Tripp said, is that doing a “mid-life refurbishment” will add an extra eight to 10 years to the useful life of each transit bus.

While it varies depending on the state of the bus, Tripp said the cost of refurbishing a single bus runs between $250,000 to $350,000. In comparison, he said the cost of a single new bus is closer to $900,000, though he didn’t have exact figures.

Tripp also noted that there is significant pressure to make the switch to electric buses, as there is only one company left in the country that still manufactures buses that run on gasoline.

Currently, the finance department, along with the city’s director of transportation, are working with the federal government toward helping the city use a federal program that helps provide funding for public transportation infrastructure.

“We’re working with them to see what it might look like for a smaller transit community like us,” Tripp said. “But retrofitting these buses at this point kind of gives us that extra time to see how the electric bus system works out in some of the other communities.

“And you know, we need to develop the infrastructure still, and there’s a lot that goes into that.”

City councillors have already seen a glimpse of the potential for electric bus technology in Brandon. Last September, the consulting firm BetterFleet presented the results of a study to council that involved three possible scenarios for the future of Brandon’s fleet.

At the time, the presentation stated that there was enough electrical grid capacity in Brandon to accommodate the rollout of an electric vehicle fleet in the short term. But it recommended that the city try out lighter-duty electric vehicles before buying heavier-duty ones.

The need to replace or refurbish the Brandon Transit fleet came to the fore one year ago when Brandon’s manager of transit services told city council in January 2024 that eight or more buses from the 17-bus fleet had been out of commission for nearly a third of the days when routes were in service the year prior.

“Last year, that was such a big thing that came to our table,” Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said on Thursday night, shortly before Tripp’s budget presentation. “We decided we’re doing all the refurbishing, which essentially almost gets us back new buses … And the (bus) purchases will be taking place as we move forward.”

“Transit’s a big deal. We did just bring in David (Wardrop), the new city manager, who oversaw a lot of the Winnipeg transition to their expresses. So we do know that this is one of the ways we can try to get people around the city less expensively.”

As far as the 2025 budget plan, Fawcett said these kinds of decisions — such as whether to buy new buses or refit the old ones — are part of the stress that comes with budget planning. And these years in particular, when faced with an 11.7 per cent increase in property taxes in the proposed 2025 budget, there’s a lot of stress to go around.

“We can see that we need to take the bull by the horns, but eventually we’re going to get to a better place. We’re not going to kick it down the road, but we’re still going to make those decisions.”

Meanwhile, in his presentation, Tripp offered the 29 or so people in the city hall foyer, and those watching the live feed on WCGtv, a general rundown of the city’s proposed budget. The proposed combined general and utility budgets amount to $153.4 million, an increase of 9.7 per cent from the 2024 approved budget, which totalled $139.7 million.

There will be one more public pre-budget discussion on the 2025 budget during Monday’s council meeting. Brandon City Council will deliberate the 2025 proposed budget on Jan. 24 and 25.

Go to brandon.ca/budget/2025-budget to view the full pdf documents. You can also watch Tripp’s Thursday night presentation on the city’s YouTube channel.

» mgoerzen@brandonsun.com

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