ROCHESTER, N.Y. – RTS is asking for a 15% increase in transit funding in the new state budget. The CEO tells News10NBC Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke the cash is crucial for the authority to keep up with its bills and continue its transition to zero-emission buses.

RTS has seen double-digit increases in ridership since the pandemic when it was cut in half. “We’re about 80-85% of pre-covid numbers, so for us that reflects about 10 million trips a year,” Valazquez says.

To continue what it currently offers and keep moving forward on the transition to zero-emission buses, Valazquez says “we need a robust investment from our leaders in Albany.”

The governor has proposed a 3.4% increase in funding for upstate transit authorities in her budget proposal. Local state lawmakers are hoping to push her to at least 7% when all is said and done.

“Many people don’t realize that our upstate transit is funded primary by taxes on long distance telephone lines and oil.. so not exactly growth industries, we need to figure out a way to modernize those revenue streams to ensure we are growing that base and not shrinking it,” says Assembly Member Jen Lunsford, (D) Perinton.

RTS was one of the first transit agencies in the state to start the switch to electric buses. The problem is, the buses haven’t worked out all that great in this area with our climate. So, now they’re moving to hydrogen fuel cell buses but those are even more expensive than electric and it’s taxpayers footing the bill.

RTS held a virtual briefing with local state lawmakers to talk about the need for more state money. While News10NBC Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke had them all together, she asked about where some of the previous state money went.

Jennifer Lewke, News10NBC: “Miguel, we have run some stories on the hydrogen (fuel-cell buses) and how that is a better option for public transit but you were sort of at the front of the line for electric buses too. How many do you have? How often do you use them and state lawmakers, do you think that was a waste of money in hindsight now because there are better options and maybe RTS isn’t getting as much use out of these electric buses as you all had hoped?”

Miguel Velázquez: “So, we have 20 electric buses, the first 10 were put in service in October of 2020, so, by this point we have enough experience with them and that’s why we made the decision to pivot to hydrogen fuel buses, they are in use, so it’s not like, oh we can’t use these… they’re just sitting there. They are in use we use them every day, they’re just not as efficient as they could be compared to a traditional diesel fuel.”

Assembly Member Sarah Clark, (D) Rochester: “It is the public investment that drives the research and development to get us to the next level which I think go hand and hand together as we move toward a cleaner fleet across all our vehicles. So, nothing is a mistake, we’re all trying to learn this as we go.”

Assembly Member Jen Lunsford, (D) Perinton: “We like to remind people, this isn’t our timeline, it’s the planets timeline.  We are watching climate change happening everyday…we need to do everything we can to encourage the adoption of greener technologies and one of the powers of government is to put dollars in to help support the market so that the private sector can catch up. This is something we have to do whether we want to or not and I’m not going to apologize for trying to keep our planet safe.”

When the state mandates were put in place, they largely aligned with federal goals and there were pots of federal money to apply for too but that may not be the case moving forward. “What I want to be caution forward on is the recognition that some of those federal funds may be changing, we don’t have that information just yet so we at the state level are thinking about how do we continue to make this transition,” says Senator Jeremy Cooney, (D) Rochester.

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