The first thing everyone on the yellow school bus departing a Durham high school Wednesday noticed was the noise.
Or rather, because the bus was electric, the lack of it.
“Students don’t have to yell and scream when they’re talking to one another in the morning,” said Mayor Leonardo Williams, a former teacher. “They’re talking, and they’re all loud, and they’re building up this anxiety, and they get to school and they have to get in a quiet classroom where they act up, and the teacher is like, ‘What is wrong with you? Calm down.’”
In fact, the electric buses are so quiet that their High-Point based manufacturer Carolina Thomas equips them with an exterior “noise emitter” so people can hear them approach.
“It’s like a whistle, like a distant train,” said Kelly Rivera, general manager for the company.
Durham Public Schools is receiving 38 electric buses thanks to a newly announced $15 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.
“It means cleaner air. It means healthier children,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a news conference. “And it means good-paying American jobs.”