All-electric bus system for Montreal by 2025?

The STM today announced plans to have its bus network go completely electric by 2025and its going to cost millions of dollars.

"Its $700,000 per bus with all the equipment and the installation you need in the garage to recharge the bus," said STM chairman Michel Labrecque.

Labrecque said that, as it stands, the transit authority doesnt have the money to carry out its plans to eventually replace all diesel buses with electric ones, and perhaps even bring back a trolley system.

Still, he said the STM has just come out of a two-year feasibility study for electric buses linked to wires.

Karel Mayrand, Quebec director of the David Suzuki Foundation, said its a step in the right direction, even if the STM doesnt have the cash to fulfill its dreams.

"Everything that will reduce our consumption of oil is a good thing, and its a good thing also from an economic perspective," he said.

Mayrand added that the Quebec government should step up to front some of the cost of the new system, instead of unloading it on Montreal taxpayers.

"[The STM would need] a billion dollars a year in addition to current financing for transit," he said.