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Time For Our Yellow Buses To Go Green

Since Ottawa City Council declared a Climate Emergency in Ottawa on April 24 2019, the effects of the climate crisis have been undeniable right here in Ottawa, with floods, tornadoes and the recent devastating derecho.

Transportation in Ottawa accounts for 42% of all greenhouse gas emissions, yet Canada generates approximately 82% of its electricity from zero emission power sources. Shifting vehicles away from fossil fuel engines towards zero emission alternatives presents a critical opportunity for significant greenhouse gas emission reductions, which can help to mitigate climate change and its extreme weather events.

80,000 students take the bus to and from school every day in Ottawa. Across the province, Ontario’s 20,000+ school buses make up Canada’s largest fleet, with monumental potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this, Ontario’s Electric School Bus Pilot program was cancelled in 2018 when the Progressive Conservatives took power. Shockingly, only 20 school buses in the province are currently electric. We can do better.

Transitioning one school bus to electric can save around 20 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year, meaning that electrifying the entire Ontario fleet would eradicate more than 360,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every single year.

Diesel Emissions Soup For Breakfast (And Dinner)

Diesel emissions are a complex mixture of particles, gases and vapours. The gases include carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOC). The particulate emissions are typically 75% elemental carbon (“char” or “soot”) and 20% organic carbon, with a small fraction consisting of inorganic compounds such as sulphate and various metal oxides originating from diesel oil and engine material. No one wants Ottawa’s children breathing in this noxious soup on their way to and from school.

The Health Burden Analysis

Image credit: Steiner, S., Bisig, C., Petri-Fink, A. et al. 2016. Diesel exhaust: current knowledge of adverse effects and underlying cellular mechanisms.

Health Canada's 2022 report estimates that traffic-related air pollution (both diesel and gasoline) was associated with over 1,200 premature deaths in Canada in 2015. Of these, heavy-duty vehicles (including buses and commercial trucks) contributed to approximately 63% of premature deaths. More populous provinces carry the greatest health burden: 500 premature deaths were estimated in Ontario.

Health Canada’s 2016 report estimated that diesel emissions alone caused 710 premature deaths across Canada, along with 2.2 million acute respiratory symptom days, 170,000 asthma symptom days and 3,000 child acute bronchitis episodes per year.

Diesel exhaust is carcinogenic in humans, specifically associated with the development of lung cancer. It is known as a trojan horse, with diesel particles acting as carriers of toxic compounds, allowing them access to organs, fluids and cells throughout the body. As well as premature mortality, diesel exhaust is associated with numerous systemic health impacts, including:

Respiratory effects - reduced lung function, inflammation of the airways, asthma, chronic pulmonary disease
Cardiovascular effects - heart disease, arrhythmia, stroke
Cancer - childhood leukemia, lung and bladder cancer in adults
Central Nervous System - neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease
Immunological effects - increased sensitivity to environmental allergens
Reproductive and Developmental effects - cognitive development, brain function, neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism

In 2015, the annual monetary value of the health burden of traffic related air pollution in Canada was estimated at $9.5 billion.

Children’s Vulnerability & Equity

Children are among the most at risk for health effects from inhalation of diesel exhaust, because they have less-developed respiratory and defense systems. Because of their size, they inhale more air per kilogram of body weight than adults. They also have greater exposure to air pollutants because they spend more time being active outdoors and they are closer to the ground, where vehicle emissions are concentrated. This means that they are particularly vulnerable while travelling in and moving around diesel school buses.

Children exposed to diesel exhaust are more likely to develop asthma in later life, and pulmonary function decrements (including increasing respiratory inflammation) have been demonstrated in asthmatics exposed to diesel exhaust. With the demonstrated susceptibility of children to the health impacts of diesel exhaust, the need to transition away from diesel school buses becomes increasingly urgent.

Yet some children are at even greater risk due to inequities such as poverty that contribute to both susceptibility and exposure. Health Canada’s 2022 report on Population Proximity to Roadways highlighted how this child health issue is also an equity issue: children are exposed to diesel fumes both at home, with lower socio-economic status neighbourhoods often located closer to high traffic roadways and traffic pollution, and at school, with a large portion of schools located near high traffic roadways (48% within 200 metres and 31% within 100 metres).

Over 2020 and 2021, over 250 Ecology Ottawa volunteers collected air quality data from over 40 sites across the city. Citizen scientists used portable air quality monitoring devices to measure particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen dioxide (which is produced by Ontario’s fleet of 20,000 diesel school buses as well as other vehicles) in the air. The 2021 campaign had an increased equity lens by focusing on the most vulnerable sectors of the population, including children in schools and low-income neighbourhoods. The campaign remains Ottawa’s largest community-led science project, critical in raising awareness of the dangers of air pollution all around us.

An important observation in our report was a significant correlation (almost 40%), between air quality and household income, meaning that populations in lower income neighbourhoods tend to be those subject to elevated levels of contaminant concentrations and therefore elevated levels of environmental health risk. Air quality worsened in line with decreasing income in a more significant way than any other factor. This is a clear demonstration of environmental inequity within the city.

In our analysis, lower income populations tended to be those living in more densely populated areas. So lower income communities have more people living together, correlating with observed increases of environmental health risk. These observations are compounding, meaning that the city is creating disproportionately higher health risks for marginalised populations in the city.

Funding Sources

Although electric school buses offer significant energy and maintenance cost savings over their typical 12 year lifetime, they do have higher upfront costs than diesel buses.

In recognition of this potential obstacle, the federal government in 2021 announced Infrastructure Canada’s $2.75 billion Zero Emission Transit Fund to support school bus operators across Canada electrifying their fleets. This builds on programs such as the Public Transit Infrastructure Stream of the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program and Canada Infrastructure Bank’s 2020 commitment to invest $1.5 billion in zero-emission buses and associated infrastructure. Taken together, there has never been more financial support for the transition to electric school buses available across Ontario.

OC Transpo Electrification

Ecology Ottawa and our friends at the Electric Vehicle Council of Ottawa, were pivotal in creating the momentum to accelerate the electrification of the bus fleet for Ottawa’s local public transit system, OC Transpo. Through partnership with the Healthy Transportation Coalition and the Electric Vehicle Council of Ottawa in 2018, Ecology Ottawa’s campaign alerted Ottawa City Council and the public to the urgency of the electrification issue.

With a 2021 federal funding commitment for zero-emission public transit and school buses, OC Transpo announced that it will move towards full electrification of its 932-bus fleet by 2036 and the first four electric buses are now in operation in the city. Now is the time to build on this momentum for those most vulnerable in our society to the health problems caused by diesel buses, to electrify the school bus fleet.

As steering committee members of the Canadian Electric School Bus Alliance (CESBA), over the next year, Ecology Ottawa will be working with our local school boards, transport consortia (who contract out school bus services) and private school bus operators, our new councillors and mayor, as well as our MPPs and the Ministers of Education, Health, the Environment, Conservation & Parks and Transportation to accelerate the necessary transition to electric school buses.

We are proud to be collaborating with many organizations on this campaign, including For Our Kids, Earth Rangers, the Electric Vehicle Council of Ottawa (EVCO), the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE Ontario) and Healthy Environments for Learning Day (HELD).

Many resources are available with further details on various aspects of the transition.

Here you can find the Transporteur+ guide for mid-sized fleets created by Propulsion Quebec, which addresses many technical aspects related to infrastructure needs.

Pollution Probe, Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment (CPCHE, ‘kip-chee’) and The Delphi Group have released a White Paper calling for the transition to electric-powered school buses across Ontario.

How to Take Action on Electric School Buses

There are many ways that you can help with the transition to electric school buses.

Read our report and watch our webinar

Read our report and watch our webinar with Dr Laura Minet from the Clean Air Lab at the University of Victoria discussing transportation related emissions and Dr Eugenie Waters from the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Ontario Regional Committee, to learn more and find out more on how you can help.

Download our Report Watch our webinar See the Slides Share our Infographic

Sign our petition

You can also sign our petition calling on Ottawa and Ontario to work together and act decisively to go electric for all city school buses.

Sign the Petition

Write to your Councillor and MPP

Write to your City Councillor, MPP, using our one-click template here.

Write to your MPP

You can also arrange to speak to your councillor in person so that you know that you are serious about the health and climate impacts of diesel exhaust.

Make a delegation to your School Board

For parents and students who want to make a delegation to your School Board, here is a template delegation which you can use as your starting point!

School Board Delegation

Together, we can make it clear to our elected officials that our diesel buses must be replaced when they reach end of life, for the sake of our children's health, and for the sake of our planet.

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