University of Iowa’s Cambus lands $16.4M for electric buses

IOWA CITY — A year before the University of Iowa plans to start an $18 million expansion and modernization of its 51-year-old Cambus Maintenance Facility — in part, to make space for 12 future electric vehicles — the campus announced Thursday it has landed a $16.4 million federal grant to help advance those plans.

The Federal Transit Administration grant for Cambus system improvements — among nearly $1.5 billion awarded to 117 transit projects this grant cycle across 47 states — will allow the UI to buy six electric buses and help it “reach its sustainability goals.”

It comes a year after the federal administration awarded Iowa City $23.3 million to double the size of its electric bus fleet to eight through the same grant — bolstering the city’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“This historic grant is an incredible step forward for Cambus,” Debby Zumbach, associate vice president and director of UI Parking and Transportation, said in a statement — thanking community leaders, lawmakers, UI President Barbara Wilson and UI Senior Vice President Rod Lehnertz for backing her team’s efforts to secure the funds. “Sustainability is important to us and to the university, and we are excited to be able to meet our goals by adding these six buses to our fleet.”

The university this year was among 62 nationwide recipients specifically for the “low- or no-emissions grant” — geared toward zero- and low-emission transit buses and the facilities that support them. Although the UI was the only project in Iowa to land a grant this cycle, Iowa City was one of three Iowa projects last cycle to get one — totaling $43.5 million between Iowa City, Dubuque and the Iowa Department of Transportation on behalf of several organizations including Coralville, which asked for $928,526 to buy two electric vehicles.

Iowa City Transportation Director Darian Nagle-Gamm last year called the federal funds a “game changer” and a “necessary piece to the puzzle” of improving the community’s transit system.

“Electric vehicles are the way the transit industry has been moving and investing in,” Cambus Operations Manager Mia Brunelli said this week, in light of the grant. “The technology has gotten to a place where it makes sense in our Cambus system, based on the routes we have, how long buses stay out on them, and how many miles we need our buses to travel.”

‘Ensure continued success’

The federal administration has distributed nearly $5 billion over the past three years to replace and modernize buses — like the fleet of 37 serving the UI community through its Cambus operation, a free service started in 1972 by UI students with six leased buses.

The six new electric buses Cambus will replace six of its oldest diesel buses. Their purchase will coincide with upgrades coming for the Cambus facility, for which the Board of Regents approved planning in September.

“The battery-electric buses go hand in hand with needed upgrades to the Cambus maintenance facility,” according to the UI Office of Strategic Communication. “The current facility has low ceilings and other structural barriers that do not allow for the ability to house electric buses, which are taller than current buses and require new infrastructure to power them.”

Work on the new facility is expected to start next summer and wrap in 2026, when the new electric vehicles are expected to arrive. The project will add 20,000 square feet to the north side of the facility on Madison Street and allow employees working in the West Campus Transportation Center to relocate and be housed under one roof.

“The updated facility will create a lot of efficiencies in our scheduling, planning services, and our response time to service issues,” Brunelli said.

Once the new buses arrive, Cambus will collaborate with the Center for Transportation and the Environment to collect data toward optimizing their performance.

Its facility plans also foresee future accommodations.

“Other types of fuels, such as hydrogen fuel, might come along in the future and might be good for Cambus to use,” Brunelli said. “We need a facility that’s flexible enough to accommodate those types of buses, and this project will allow us to have that space.”

Cambus officials said maintenance and office upgrades additionally will be mostly funded through the federal grant — along with UI’s transportation auxiliary reserves.

“We were very focused in putting this grant application together to set Cambus up for many more years,” Brunelli said. “Cambus marked 50 years in 2022, and this facility modernization and expansion and the use of alternative fuels will ensure continued success.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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