05/17/2007

Associated Press

King County Metro Transit plans to buy up to 500 new hybrid buses. It made the announcement today.

The first order of 22 hybrid buses will arrive in 2008, at a cost of $719,000 each.

The buses will be built by New Flyer of America, using a hybrid drive built by General Motors and an engine built by Cummins.

They will be purchased, in part, with a sales-tax increase that voters approved last fall to increase bus trips countywide.

In 2006, Metro said that if the Transit Now ballot measure passed, the agency would buy 190 buses in the first two years, and half would be hybrids.

(The Seattle Times; not for online use in the Seattle area)