How a Canadian Infrastructure Bank Investment in Transit Should Chart a Green Pandemic Recovery

Dr. Josipa Petrunić, President & CEO, Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC)

Amidst the most restrictive government pandemic lockdown measures issued in March, transit kept moving. In the face of potential infection and unknown risks to drivers and transit front line staff alike, public transit kept going. Buses, trains, streetcars and shuttles have kept going where we need to go even when the means by which the coronavirus spreads were still unclear, and drivers didn’t know how much risk they were being exposed to.

Getting essential workers like nurses and grocery clerks to their workplaces--so that Canadians can keep living a high quality of life even in the face of a global epidemiological crisis--is what transit does.

As we enter a second wave of infectious spread and governments pump money into vaccine developments, the Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC) is focusing our energies on ensuring the Canadian transit system is not left behind. This means putting it front and centre, as a place of innovation, technology development and future green jobs.

Buses, trains, streetcars and shuttles have kept going where we need to go even when the means by which the coronavirus spreads were still unclear, and drivers didn’t know how much risk they were being exposed to.

Transit innovation for green recovery

Transit innovation shows us a way to create green jobs that will help cities and provinces thrive by building up a system we all need, even in times of crisis.

Which is why the recent announcement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, along with the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, Catherine McKenna, and the Canadian Infrastructure Chair Michael Sabia, committing $1.5 billion in new financing to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission buses (ZEBs) and charging infrastructure nation-wide is so important.

It’s financial innovation that will lead to technological transformation--changing the way we get around as Canadians.

The CIB was created by the federal government four years ago with the sole objective of spurring infrastructure innovation and deployment across the country. With just over 120 deployed and planned battery electric buses on the roads across Canada today, and with a laudable but arduous goal of getting 5,000 of them on the road by 2023 (of a total bus fleet of approximately 15,000), the CIB is positioned to spur the financial disruption needed to incite technological innovation across Canada’s transit sector.

Canada is large, but small. We have a massive geography with a small taxpayer base. Financial innovation is critical to the growth of a transit sector that has long been under-funded, under-recognized and under-appreciated as a jobs-generating, equity-creating social mobilization tool.

With its $1.5 billion in new financing, the CIB could help to launch new models that finance green buses and their charging or hydrogen fuelling systems in exchange for cities paying back those low-interest loans with funds they save over traditional diesel costs by going electric. Or they could pay back loans using new rental revenues they create by renting out real-time access to their high-powered on-route charging systems which heavy-duty trucks and delivery vans will need access to when they go electric in the mid-term future. 

The CIB could also help to finance the launch of bus-to-grid technology demonstrations that would see idle buses plugged into garage charging units to support pricey peaks in the electricity market, saving local rate payers money along the way too. Or the CIB could finance hydrogen electrolyzers that produce hydrogen for buses, coaches and hydrogen rail (“hydrail”) applications from surplus electric grid power making it cheap and clean fuel for a massive transit and freight industry combined.

Canada is large, but small. We have a massive geography with a small taxpayer base. Financial innovation is critical to the growth of a transit sector that has long been under-funded, under-recognized and under-appreciated as a jobs-generating, equity-creating social mobilization tool.

Creative financing and creative technologies

Canada is small enough that our taxpayer base will never have enough money to fund all the innovative green things we need to commercialize a zero-carbon future.

The CIB needs to be creative. So too does transit.

Private sector financing and triple bottom line returns-on-investment -- that allow transit agencies to pay back both the taxpayer and the private sector with savings in units of pollution, maintenance costs and operational costs -- is needed to turn the technological century over. To push us away from twentieth-century modes of energy-laden transportation into twenty-first century modes tech-imbued transit-oriented shared mobility networks.

The commercial opportunity is here. Taxpayers want the triple bottom line benefits -- environmental, social and economic -- that come with green transit and zero-emissions systems deployments. And with COVID19 drops in revenue playing themselves out, the CIB needs to work with transit to buttress green infrastructure fleet procurements to future-proof our cities both environmentally and economically.

The CIB needs to be creative. So too does transit.

For media requests, contact: grace.reilly [at] cutric-crituc.org 514-244-3244

***

News! Canadian Smart Rail Technology Conference 2020

CUTRIC is launching its first national Smart Rail Technology Conference 2020. This conference will focus on “Moving Canadians Forward” with the most advanced rail technologies available world-wide, many of which are designed and innovated in Canada.

Canada is a vast, expansive, beautiful country. To traverse it requires rail like none other. But low-cost high-frequency passenger rail has eluded most Canadians for decades. It’s time for change. The COVID-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to the need for rapid, extensive, and country-wide rail innovation that moves Canadians (and their freight) faster, cheaper and more sustainably than ever before.

About CUTRIC

The Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC)'s vision is to make Canada a global leader in low-carbon smart mobility technologies across heavy-duty and light-duty platforms, including advanced transit, transportation, and integrated mobility applications. CUTRIC’s work generates solutions that decrease fuel consumption, reduce emissions, reduce congestion, and improve the quality of life for mobility customers and transit riders. CUTRIC supports the development and commercialization technologies required for a 21st century low-carbon green economy.

Visit us at www.cutric-crituc.org