Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Energy Vision, the New York League of Conservation Voters, WE ACT for Environmental Justice and prominent health experts called on New York City to stop buying heavy-duty diesel vehicles for its municipal fleets and to adopt superior alternatives to diesel. Specifically, they are asking the city and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to take the following actions:
- Stop allocating funds for the purchase of new, heavy-duty diesel trucks and MTA diesel buses now.
- Focus new, heavy-duty vehicle purchases on the best diesel alternatives. Electric models are expensive and experimental, though worth piloting. Natural gas models, equipped with ultra low-emission Near Zero engines running on renewable natural gas (RNG) fuel made from organic wastes, are the cleanest, lowest carbon and most cost-effective today.
- Make the necessary capital expenditures on infrastructure and fleet garage modifications to support the implementation of these alternatives.
London has already banned procurement of new diesel vehicles, and other major cities worldwide are restricting or eliminating them. In the U.S., many heavy-duty fleets have converted to RNG. Nationwide, 60 percent of the refuse trucks on order today are natural gas models that can run on RNG as well as compressed natural gas (CNG).
While other major cities have adopted RNG, New York City has not. Its municipal fleets currently have few natural gas trucks and none run on RNG. NYC agencies continue to rely on diesel vehicles, and their budgets call for buying hundreds more in the years ahead.
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