City of Thunder Bay

Hi, I’m Jeff Walters, and welcome to The Minutes. And thanks for listening today, it’s great to have you along on The Minutes for the week of May the 13th 2024. This is a City of Thunder Bay podcast. The Minutes takes a look at what happened at Thunder Bay city council this past week. On this episode we’ll have a rundown of what happened at this week’s city council meeting, and an interview with Kelvin Jankowski regarding the city’s plan to move its fleet to electric vehicles. It’s an expensive plan that will take nearly two decades to fulfill. We’ll hear about that in just a few minutes. 

But first, Council approved its tax policy for 2024 on Monday night. The tax policy sets out how much each property will pay based on its assessment. Council went against administration’s recommendation with tax ratios, and adopted an amendment to accept the third option in a corporate report. That will keep the tax ratios the same as last year. The rationale from Council was that the third option didn’t shift any more tax burden onto the residential class. For a residential home, taxes will go up by 4.95% this year. Based on the median average home in Thunder Bay, the average tax bill will go up by $184.80 this year. Overall taxation growth was just under a million dollars right across Thunder Bay. 

Council agreed to sign on with the provincial DRIVE ON program. The program will be in use at the city’s mechanical shops. DRIVE ON will be used instead of the province’s motor vehicle inspection stations. The change is so City mechanics can continue to provide annual safety inspections on the city’s Fleet, and semi-annual inspections on buses. The change will impact 48 conventional buses, 27 specialized buses and 85 heavy trucks along with fire rescue vehicles. The change will take place later this year. 

There were many questions about a plan to transition Thunder Bay Transit and the municipal Fleet to zero emission vehicles on Monday. Council received the zero emissions transition plan as a first report. It highlighted the steps that would be taken to move buses and vehicles away from traditional fuel burning vehicles to electric ones. The plan would run until 2050 and will cost about $74 million more than than buying conventional Vehicles over that time frame. It would take until 2044 to turn the fleet into a zero-emission one. The plan does not include the replacement of all city vehicles, such as ambulances, fire trucks and some heavy machinery. Some of that equipment is not readily available in electric models, however administration says it will keep an eye on these vehicles and see when they could be introduced into the fleet. It is projected that the city’s operations and maintenance costs would go down by more than a third if non-emission vehicles are introduced to the fleet. The switch would save about 78,000 tons of greenhouse gases by 2050, with most of that reduction coming from the transit fleet. The city has already received about $24 million in Federal and provincial funding to do upgrades to the transit garage, install new hydro transformers and charging stations and buy some new vehicles. Other Government funding should also be available in the future. The report will come back to council for debate on July the 15th. We’ll hear more about this plan when Kelvin Jankowski, the manager of Capital Facilities Construction joins me in just a couple of minutes. 

If you want to go to Marina Park and Prince Arthur’s Landing this summer you will need to pay for parking. Earlier this year, Council approved paid parking at the waterfront at the price of $2 an hour or $3 an hour in the Market Square lot. There was opposition to this move, particularly from people who said they use the Waterfront for walking on a daily basis. Council approved two new parking passes for the Waterfront. One allows for parking at the marina for up to 4 hours per day, the other allows for parking all day at the marina. The prices are $80 and $140 respectively. The passes would be good until the end of this calendar year. Now Taiji users will be given passes without charge for Tuesday evening and Thursday mornings. A report says this is in recognition of the equal partnership with the City building the Taiji Park along with the Peng You Taiji Quan Association. Paid parking comes into effect at the waterfront for all vehicles on June 1st. 

Council referred a resolution back to the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee which asked for a measured approach when it comes to transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy. The request comes after Enbridge, the natural gas company, made a presentation to the committee. The presentation highlighted how gas will still play a role in the province’s energy needs for a number of years. The referral back to the committee asks for more information, which will then be represented to council once again.

Council approved a resolution on Monday from the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee asking Council to support new rules that would make sure municipally elected representatives, such as the mayor and councillors would be held to the same standard as other workers in Ontario when it comes to treating each other with respect. The request comes after a group called Women of Ontario Say No was formed. It’s in response to the conduct of a city councillor in Ottawa. A copy of the passed resolution will be sent to the provincial government.

Council attended the Annual General Meeting for Synergy North on Monday night. The AGM is a legal requirement as the city is the majority shareholder of the utility. At the AGM, as shareholders, Council approved the Chair of the Synergy North board, accepted the audited financial statements and appointed the auditor. 

And finally, the Thunder Bay Common Bonds and Chaplain were recognized at last night’s council meeting with a Citizens of Exceptional Achievement Award. The award was given to this group for its work supporting long-term care residents with St Joseph’s Care Group. The awards are handed to groups who volunteer in our community for a minimum of 10 years. And that’s a wrap as to what happened at Council this week. For more information on anything that happens at Council, please visit our website, thunderbay.ca/council.

There are more and more of them on the road. Zero emission vehicles, which are usually electric, on the roads of Thunder Bay and right across Canada. The City has two electric pickup trucks, but administration has plans to bring even more electric vehicles into the city’s fleet. Kelvin Jankowski is the city’s manager of capital facilities construction. Kelvin, thanks for coming into The Minutes studio today. 

KELVIN: Ah thanks for having me Jeff. 

JEFF: So Ah we heard lots about electrical vehicles in the news for the city for the last couple of years now. Why is the city looking into more electric vehicles now? 

KELVIN: So part of the near-term tactics of the Net Zero Strategy uh was to look at a strategy for electrifying fleet vehicles. Um right now, uh the impetus is on Transit Vehicles because that’s the kind of funding strategy that we’re uh getting from other levels of government, so we’re focusing on that primarily, but also looking at Municipal Fleet as these vehicles become available for purchase.

 JEFF: And looking at transit buses, it it seems like the majority of the emissions are from transit right now, anyway. 

KELVIN: That’s correct it’s a rather large I believe it’s 48 active Fleet, um 60,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Um is quite substantial, high percentage of what we’re emitting. Um that’s excluding Emergency Services. 

JEFF: Okay okay so that’s not including, would that be I guess police, Fire, EMS? 

KELVIN: That’s correct. 

JEFF: Okay 

KELVIN: And and and those are those are also in the works in the background at some point, but again um those will be uh priority two Vehicles. 

JEFF: So yeah, when you you mentioned uh priority Vehicles there, we’re looking at at Transit and and fleet vehicles. What are the kinds of vehicles I guess that we’re looking at besides buses?

 KELVIN: So Priority One vehicles are basically vehicles that are already available in the market, uh they’re competing in the market with with uh internal combustion engine vehicles. That would be pick up trucks of different various sizes, forkliefts, ice resurfacers, things of that nature. Uh the larger Vehicles would be priority two. Uh we have a wait and see approach on those in terms of how the market develops for those. Um there are industry developments happening in the background, and uh we’ll keep on top of those as they as they occur. 

JEFF: And would that be like garbage trucks, that sort of stuff?

 KELVIN: Yes garbage trucks, sweepers, um loaders, construction vehicles, things of that nature. 

JEFF: So obviously uh you know, just knowing electric vehicles for looking for a for a pickup truck myself, uh which I’m not buying by the way because of the cost of any pickup truck right now, what are some of the costs involved in this? 

KELVIN: So in terms of the cost of the transit vehicles, uh there’s approximately depending on what type you’ve buy,  about a 40% premium on the cost of the vehicle itself. Ah fortunately that cost is uh through ISIP and through ZETF funding programs between 75 and 80% funded by those by those uh programs. Ah regarding uh Priority One Vehicles, depending on what you’re purchasing, could be anywhere from 10 to 25%. Ah again it’s very variable depending on how saturated the market is or how many vehicles are are being produced at the time.

 JEFF: So so yeah so wide ranges of of of costs. What about on an overall level. What would this what will this be costing the city in the long run? 

KELVIN: So for the transit vehicles and the and the um the priority One vehicles, I believe somewhere around 70, 74 million uh in additional costs that’s exclusive of of third- party funding. So that would be 74 million not including the federal, provincial uh funding that we may receive for for Capital and uh and vehicle purchases.

JEFF: And this isn’t to be something uh you know absorbed in a year, this is a this is a long-term plan. 

KELVIN: Correct that’s that’s over the uh course of the plan to 20, I believe the final um IC Bus would be off the road in 2044. 

JEFF: And then what about savings, you know, are we going to see anything change when it comes to well obviously we’re not going to be using fuel, but but maintenance or anything like that? 

KELVIN: Certainly uh over, they project over the life that once the transit Fleet is fully electric that we’re looking at approximately 30 to 35% savings and operations and maintenance costs. Ah in the interim while we’re operating two separate fleets, electric and conventional, there’s there’s going to be additional costs. Those costs are built into the 74 million however. 

JEFF: And and then when we’re talking about the costs of this, it’s not just procuring the vehicles, what’s some of the other things that we have to pay for to to get an electrified fleet? 

KELVIN: So certainly we we’re looking at uh increasing the electrical capacity of the transit building. Ah we’ll do that in three phases. Ah the first phase will bring in a transformer uh as well as underground ducting for the other two phases. Ah that will, that will take care of the electrical requirements for the first phase of the transition. Ah concurrently, should the should the first phase be successful, ah we’ll proceed to the next phase. At that point we’ll bring in additional Transformers, additional capacity and then look at the potentiality of adding a bay on to the facility. 

JEFF: And you mentioned something there which is phasing of this. Why are we doing this in in phases and not just kind of going you know full full guns a blazing forward? 

KELVIN: I think ultimately we’re more balancing the risk uh versus reward. It’s uh it’s really about doing it in such a way that the impacts, uh to to to City of Thunder Bay uh can be mitigated uh over time. Ah also it gives us an opportunity to uh take take advantage of advancements in the in the industry as they occur. 

JEFF: And you know, I I think we haven’t really touched on this yet the environmental impact. What is the impact of of going to a fully electric Fleet? 

KELVIN: Ah certainly for the priority One and the transit Vehicles, we’re looking at approximately uh 73,000 tons of greenhouse gas equivalent removals, uh it’s equivalent to about 17,000 cars I believe off the road.

JEFF: Yeah so a fair a fairly big impact. 

KELVIN: Absolutely. 

JEFF: And then you know what are some of the change, or I guess when, sorry, can we see some of these changes uh potentially coming to the fleet? 

KELVIN:  So, so right now we have funding in place for um multiple Transit Vehicles as well and that would be the conventional buses as well as para- Transit vehicles, uh so we would be looking as soon as um late 2024 or late 2025 to be procuring. Ah the turnaround time on those Vehicles is approximately two years, and so that 2-year time frame between procurement of of the vehicles and getting the infrastructure into place, uh into the transit building in order to charge those uh vehicles, that’s our that’s our window. 

JEFF: Okay so yeah so it’s going to be a couple years before we see an electric bus cruising down the road here. 

KELVIN: Certainly uh we’re looking at uh 2026 uh sometime. 

JEFF: And then you were at Council last night, this is a first report, so that means there’s no, you know, debate or anything like that. It’s just about, you know, questions for you. What were some of the things that you were that you were asked last night? 

KELVIN: Ah, so a few councillors asked about hybrid buses. Ah we’ll go into further detail on that, but a lot of the transit agencies uh adopted hybrid technology 10 years ago and have gone through that cycle and are now moving to full electric. Ah there’s a number of reasons for that, but um the TTC for example has uh purchased their last hybrids and there as of 2025 all of their purchases are going to be fully electric. Um the other question was uh asked about about uh made in Canada. Um ICIP and ZETF funding have those stipulations in terms of, um those you’re only eligible to get that funding uh if you’re have a certain Canadian component. Um and then um yeah other questions were around uh going too fast, or going too slow. Um we had some councilors talk about feeling like this was too fast and others going too slow. So, um hope to alleviate concerns on both sides uh in the follow-up meeting July 15th.

JEFF: Yeah, so so you bring this back to Council on on July the 15, what kind of info do you bring them, uh for that meeting that we that we haven’t seen yet? 

KELVIN: So we’ll gather the questions that we’ve had thus far. We expect that there’s going to be further questions coming from citizens, coming from um counselors and the like,  and we’re hope to inform Council further on on the reports before they make a decision yeah and it’s at that 15th of July meaning that they’ll make a decision at that point on on what we’re doing with the fleet. 

KELVIN: That’s correct uh and now that we’ve uh had those plans in place place which were funded by ZETF, uh once we get those plans approved then we can move forward to it uh tapping into additional ZETF funding um as a result of that approval. 

JEFF: Kelvin, I appreciate you coming in today, thank you very much. 

KELVIN: Thanks Jeff, take care. 

JEFF: Kelvin Jankowski is the manager of Capital Facilities Construction in Thunder Bay, and he joined me here in The Minutes studio. And a big thanks for listening to The Minutes this week. Of course, if you want more information about city council, agendas or minutes, visit thunderbay.ca/council.

If you want to listen to past episodes, or maybe provide some feedback, visit thunderbay.ca/theminutes.

You can also find The Minutes wherever you get your podcasts, that includes Apple, Google and Amazon Podcasts along with Spotify plus our website as well. I’m Jeff Walters, thanks for listening this week, we’ll chat again in two weeks after the long weekend. Make it a great day.