Charging Forward (bus electrification plan)

[Busjack]

The Pace announcement got me to the Community Projects Grants, which also includes $1.5 million from Durbin for CTA 74th Garage EV Project.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

Just be patient. Nova Bus has more than CTA to fill orders for. And there is no evidence that the LFSe is actually a thing with CTA because as @Busjack noted a number of times there was never a bid put out as far as CTA's solicitation records show and no record of a contract awarded. And if that in fact is still the case, which I've heard no mention otherwise, it's never going to be a CTA LFSe with Nova leaving the US market to concentrate on Canada and this current 8350s contract being the last one CTA ever does with Nova. Your only hope in that case is some possibility a small number of LFSe buses are an addendum to the 8350s order similar to how the hybrid NF 800s and 900s were for the 1000s order. But again like with a solicitation for bids separately for an LFSe order, there's no record or announcement of that being the case as far as I know.

I had discussed that above in this topic. The difference from what you said I said was that was supposed to be a "partnership" grant (I questioned why no solicitation).

I wasn't here when the 5900s were procured, but in the case of the 800s and 900s, the procurement was for 1050 buses, with 20 of them being hybrids. In the case of the Novas, the solicitation was for 100 buses with 5 options for 100 each. I also noted above that CT Board's practice is that the Board has to approve each contract, exercise of an option, or change order " for contracts originally valued at more than $1,000,000.00 that individually or cumulatively increase the original contract value by more than 10% or by more than $500,000.00" and there's no evidence that it did, we have to go with Ordinance 023-80, which only exercised Options 3-5, changed the timing of Option 5, and appropriated money for spare parts. It said nothing about a change order for an additional $1.8 million to change 6 diesel buses to electric, and the Whereas "The continued purchase of new diesel buses is in line with the
Authority’s plan to fully electrify the bus fleet by 2040 as outlined in the Charging Forward Study, and the new buses will result in a significant reduction of emissions compared to the older buses that are being replaced" indicates to the contrary.

But I think @Elkmn figured that out.

[jajuan]

6 minutes ago, Busjack said:

I had discussed that above in this topic. The difference from what you said I said was that was supposed to be a "partnership" grant (I questioned why no solicitation).

I wasn't here when the 5900s were procured, but in the case of the 800s and 900s, the procurement was for 1050 buses, with 20 of them being hybrids. In the case of the Novas, the solicitation was for 100 buses with 5 options for 100 each. I also noted above that CT Board's practice is that the Board has to approve each contract, exercise of an option, or change order " for contracts originally valued at more than $1,000,000.00 that individually or cumulatively increase the original contract value by more than 10% or by more than $500,000.00" and there's no evidence that it did, we have to go with Ordinance 023-80, which only exercised Options 3-5, changed the timing of Option 5, and appropriated money for spare parts. It said nothing about a change order for an additional $1.8 million to change 6 diesel buses to electric, and the Whereas "The continued purchase of new diesel buses is in line with the
Authority’s plan to fully electrify the bus fleet by 2040 as outlined in the Charging Forward Study, and the new buses will result in a significant reduction of emissions compared to the older buses that are being replaced" indicates to the contrary.

But I think @Elkmn figured that out.

Thanks for the clarification especially as far as the 800s and 900s go. I was going off memory of CTA announcing and referencing 1030 NFs at the time and then seeing 800s and 900s delivered later in the delivery cycle, with my first 800s sightings initially being on the 62 out of Archer and 900s sightings on both the 12 and 126 before all 20 hybrids were placed at K soon after. 

[wayfaringrob]

A request for proposals (RFP) for "Manufacture and Delivery of a Base Order of Thirty (30) Clean Battery-Electric Transit Buses with Six (6) Options to Purchase up to Two Hundred Twenty (220) Additional Buses and Associated Spare Parts" (C26FI103254072) was posted on March 30, 2026. https://transitchicago.bonfirehub.com/opportunities/229059 

It appears to be a joint procurement with Pace. Pace's bid number is 424199. https://www.pacebus.com/bid/424199

Note that this is unrelated to the hybrid buses which will eventually be procured with recently announced funding from the federal low/no grant, discussed in this thread. Per this Sun-Times article, the 30 electric buses being sought in this procurement will be purchased with funds from the Illinois EPA. Interestingly, when that funding was announced in February 2025 (in this article), it mentioned that there would be 30 electric buses for CTA and 27 for Pace. Perhaps the 27 for Pace are considered the first option in the RFP.

[YoungBusLover]

7 hours ago, wayfaringrob said:

A request for proposals (RFP) for "Manufacture and Delivery of a Base Order of Thirty (30) Clean Battery-Electric Transit Buses with Six (6) Options to Purchase up to Two Hundred Twenty (220) Additional Buses and Associated Spare Parts" (C26FI103254072) was posted on March 30, 2026. https://transitchicago.bonfirehub.com/opportunities/229059 

It appears to be a joint procurement with Pace. Pace's bid number is 424199. https://www.pacebus.com/bid/424199

Note that this is unrelated to the hybrid buses which will eventually be procured with recently announced funding from the federal low/no grant, discussed in this thread. Per this Sun-Times article, the 30 electric buses being sought in this procurement will be purchased with funds from the Illinois EPA. Interestingly, when that funding was announced in February 2025 (in this article), it mentioned that there would be 30 electric buses for CTA and 27 for Pace. Perhaps the 27 for Pace are considered the first option in the RFP.

They need to quit while they're ahead and go to either hybrids or clean diesel again.

[Busjack]

My response to @wayfaringrob's post is under Pace electric buses, since the "fabric" comes together there. The only divergence is that this procurement does not include the Pace IEPA grant.

[Busjack]

14 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

They need to quit while they're ahead and go to either hybrids or clean diesel again.

• Pure diesels are out of the question.
• Giving this more thought, the only thing firm here are the 30 buses from (as @wayfaringrob pointed out) the IEPA grant. If this is a multijurisdictional contract, CTA can just let some other agencies pick off the excess. Also, there is the No/Low grant for 150 hybrid buses, for which a solicitation has not been issued. We also don't know if this solicitation includes artics.

[Busjack]

On 4/6/2026 at 6:12 PM, wayfaringrob said:

A request for proposals (RFP) for "Manufacture and Delivery of a Base Order of Thirty (30) Clean Battery-Electric Transit Buses with Six (6) Options to Purchase up to Two Hundred Twenty (220) Additional Buses and Associated Spare Parts" (C26FI103254072) was posted on March 30, 2026. https://transitchicago.bonfirehub.com/opportunities/229059 

IDK where this discussion went, but the solicitation finally did close on October 16, 2026. Click the link in the quote above.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

Well actually the CTA getting the 8350s has more to do with Nova being the lower cost bidder than it did Pace getting XD40s. Had New Flyer bid lower at the time, then both CTA and Pace would be sitting on XD40s right now. So if CTA does have a possibility of getting Gilligs, then it will depend on of Gillig puts in a bid and if that bid ultimately works its way to being the lowest price bid. It won't have anything to do with Pace having gotten some as its electric buses and its latest round of hybrid ones unless CTA wants to break the law in not giving Gillig a fair shake if it does in fact submit a bid. They don't want another fiasco like happened with the MAN Americanas where other manufacturers at the time accused CTA of illegally and unfairly giving MAN a priority advantage where CTA would have gotten a boatload of Americanas. That complaint  ultimately resulted in part in CTA getting the TMCs and the Flxible 5300s instead of a similar number of what would have been wheelchair accessible varieties of the Americana platform given the TMCs and 5300s were CTA's first fully accessible mainline buses. 

 

1 hour ago, jtrussel said:

I agree with you on it comes down to.the lower bidder on a contract. My question is has gillig ever bid on a CTA contract, CTA when spec their busses always seem to tweak things like the 4400s rts WFD design No AC heated floors etc. Flxible different  front door design would gillig go.along with cta specs or is there a possibility cta gets gilligs with pace specs

 

 

IDK if you are referring to electrics or hybrids. But, again, if this were discussed in the proper topic, you would have seen above the bidding on the 250 electrics just closed. If I understand correctly, the NITA board will award the contract.

If you're talking about hybrids, that was discussed ad nauseum under the Pace hybrid and CTA No/Low topics.