Town Scores Two Natural Gas Buses for Senior Transport

The Town of Smithtown has purchased two compressed natural gas buses to add to its fleet of vehicles that use eco-friendly fuels.

The buses will replace two out of the four shuttle buses used by the town's senior citizens department, which offer transportation to local seniors.

Town Supervisor Patrick Vecchio said the buses will join the town’s "Clean Fleet" project, which has already includes 22 natural gas-powered garbage trucks, eight highway department general duty trucks, seven natural gas-powered cars used by various town inspectors, a natural gas-powered street sweeper and a natural gas-powered pick-up truck. The town has also built two natural gas fueling stations in Hauppauge and Kings Park.

Funds to buy the vehicles were supported by state grants.

“Many of our vehicles are hybrid, we may have two or three natural gas vehicles, hopefully everything we buy will be a green vehicle,” he said. “We applied for a grant from New York State and the choices were for diesel fuel or hybrid and we applied for the hybrid one for vans for the senior department.”

Russell Barnett, environmental protection director for the town’s environement and waterways department, said using compressed natural gas and not diesel fuel will cut harmful emissions spewed locally.

“Medical research has implicated that fine particulate matter from diesel trucks has contributed to the rising incidents of childhood asthma and other respiratory ailments including various repertory cancers," he said.

"By using natural gas instead of using diesel fuel you reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent."