Trinity Metro creates first sustainability plan as part of Biden administration initiative to reduce pollution

A handful of Trinity Metro staff have always known about the transit agency’s actions to reduce air pollution and energy use, said Chad Edwards, the agency’s vice president of planning and development. Six electric Dash buses carry passengers through downtown and the Cultural District. Over the past decade, the agency’s fleet of buses were converted from a diesel fuel system to compressed natural gas in an effort to reduce fossil fuel emissions. But those initiatives were never compiled into a formal action plan with timelines for completion that could be viewed by employees and the general public, Edwards said. Now, thanks to the agency’s participation in the Federal Transit Administration’s inaugural “Sustainable Transit for a Healthy Planet Challenge,” staff have drafted their first-ever sustainability plan.

“We already do a lot of these things – it just hasn’t been documented very well,” Edwards said. “We already have electric buses and the plan is to purchase more of those. It just wasn’t put on paper, necessarily, that we were going to do this in a certain timeframe.” Trinity Metro is one of more than 170 organizations participating in the challenge nationwide. The goal is to push public transportation agencies to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which trap heat and contribute to global warming. Transportation accounts for 29% of total greenhouse gas emissions each year, according to the latest Environmental Protection Agency data. The North Central Texas Council of Governments, a voluntary association of governments that work on regional planning issues, encouraged local transit agencies to get involved with the challenge. Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Denton County Transportation Authority, east Dallas’ STAR Transit and the council of governments are also participating. Organizations had a slate of three options: submitting their existing climate action plans, explaining their strategy for developing one or creating an entirely new plan for the challenge, Edwards said. “It gives us a better sense of how we move forward in the future, and it’s still in its early stages,” Edwards said. “There’s some internal review that has to be done, but we hope to take it to the board (of directors).”