Every day in neighborhoods across America, some 25 million small people with sensitive, developing lungs are ferried from home to school and back in big, noisy, heavily polluting vehicles: diesel school buses. The interior of these buses can have 4 times the level of toxic fumes compared to the inside of a typical passenger car.

To remedy this unhealthy situation, and reduce planet-warming greenhouse gases, the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $5 billion to help school districts buy new electric school buses that have zero tailpipe emissions.

The two largest school districts in the D.C. region have been selected in the latest round of funding: Fairfax County will receive $16.6 million to buy 42 new electric buses, while Montgomery County will add 50 new electric buses to its fleet using $4.7 million in grant money.

“The drivers love them. The children that we transport, they love them,” says Paul D’Andrade, executive director of transportation services at FCPS. “It’s much quieter, and they don’t have to breathe in any emission fumes.”

FCPS currently operates a massive fleet of 1,625 school buses — that’s roughly the same size as WMATA’s Metrobus fleet. The vast majority of FCPS buses are currently diesel, with just 28 that are electric. Still, that’s more electric buses than most states have on the road.

FCPS has another three electric buses on order that are expected this spring. The 42 new buses funded by the federal infrastructure law will arrive in the spring of 2025, D’Andrade says.

FCPS has a goal of making the entire fleet zero-emission buses by the year 2035.

In Montgomery County, there are currently 86 electric school buses in operation. MCPS has plans to expand that to 326 electric buses by 2025 and to go all-electric within ten years. Under the Maryland Climate Solutions Now Act, passed in 2021, school districts in the state must purchase only zero-emissions buses when buying new vehicles.

Electric buses — like all EVs — currently cost more upfront but can provide savings over the long term. Electric school buses cost twice as much as comparable diesel buses to purchase, D’Andrade says — about $400,000, compared to $190,000.

“We’re saving money on fuel and also just the mechanicals, with less moving parts, there’s less things that could go wrong from a mechanical standpoint. So we are seeing some preliminary savings in that manner,” D’Andrade says.

While Fairfax is using the federal grant to purchase buses outright, in Montgomery County, the school district is partnering with a private company called Highland, which owns and maintains the buses, and provides the charging infrastructure. Under this model, the upfront costs are lower, and the school system can deploy more electric buses in a short amount of time.

Transitioning to electric school buses will be good for kids’ health — diesel exhaust can lead to asthma, heart disease, lung disease, and cancer. Switching to cleaner buses will also help the climate. In Montgomery County alone, school buses use approximately 17,000 gallons of diesel fuel in a typical school day. A single day of bussing MCPS students produces greenhouse gas emissions equal to driving 38 passenger cars for an entire year, or driving one car from D.C. to San Francisco and back 79 times.