MEXICO CITY (CN) — Bucking a reputation for pollution that has plagued it for decades, Mexico City last month introduced two major clean energy projects: a second all-electric bus line and a solar power plant that will be the world's largest in an urban center.
Metrobús, Mexico City's bus rapid-transit system, in February replaced all 55 of its diesel buses on Line 4 with new electric ones. Each bus can transport 130 riders, for a total of 120,000 riders a day. The line serves a 22-mile, 40-station route, and the buses can travel 152 miles with a single battery charge.
Line 4 is the second all-electric Metrobús line, preceded by Line 3. In that case, officials in 2023 replaced 60 diesel buses with electric ones, making it the first all-electric bus line in Latin America.
Each Line 3 bus has the capacity to carry 160 riders. That line serves 200,000 riders a day. Together, the two lines will reportedly reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 13,345 tons per year.
In interviews, Mexico City residents seemed pleased with the new buses. Leopoldo Villalobos, a frequent rider of lines 3 and 4, said the whole system benefits the city. While the bus batteries also cause pollution, there’s much less of it, he noted.
"They're clean, they're a lot quieter, and they decrease citizens' dependence on vehicles, which makes it a double advantage," Villalobos said as he waited in front of his home across from a Line 4 Metrobús stop.
Mexico City has a long history with electric transportation. The first electric tram was introduced all the way back in 1900, when the city's population was much smaller.
The trams were depicted in the media as "crazy bulls" because their size and speed made them seem dangerous, said Michael Bess, a researcher on Mexican transportation and technology and author of “Routes of Compromise: Building Roads and Shaping the Nation in Mexico, 1917-1952.”
It didn't help that their voltage supply was stored open and above ground, a hazard to anyone who walked by. "It was a good example of modernization presenting new dangers to the city," Bess said in an interview.
More trolley, tram and bus lines soon followed, connecting what were then outlying and affluent neighborhoods to the city center. The Mexico City metro was inaugurated in 1967, facilitating ever-expanding population growth but also infamous pollution.
These days, hundreds of unregulated and individually owned bus lines traverse the city, often leaving plumes of black smoke in their wake. While high-polluting, these microbuses are nonetheless popular with residents as they’re affordable and typically run more local routes.
In an attempt to keep up with demand for more public transit amid steep population growth, Mexico City officials introduced the Metrobús system in 2005. "The current Metróbus system is another good example of Mexico City looking outward, which they had done before," Bess said.
Miguel Peréz owns a taco stand directly off of Line 4 in downtown. He commutes an hour and a half every day from the outer borough of Itzapalapa, including with rides on Line 4 buses.
In an interview at his taco stand, Peréz said he was pleased with the new electric buses.
"It's definitely a good thing. It's better for the environment,” he said. “With these buses, there's less pollution, and we rely less on gas and oil.”
Another Line 4 rider, Jacqueline Fernández, said that while the new electric buses are a positive, the service still isn't ideal.
"They're very late a lot of the time,” she said as she waited at a Line 4 bus platform. “After five in the afternoon they're too full, so I usually prefer to walk.”
Nearly 163 million people in the Valley of Mexico Metropolitan Area rode public transport in December 2023, according to data published this year by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, a Mexican government agency. Of those riders, 35.6 million or 21.9% rode Metrobús.
