BC Transit says the first of 15 new 40-foot battery-electric buses for Whistler has arrived, with the remainder scheduled for late 2026 and spring 2027 deliveries.
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BC Transit has begun delivering a new wave of battery-electric buses for Whistler’s public transit system, with 15 new 40-foot vehicles allocated to the resort community as part of BC Transit’s initial province-wide order of 125 battery-electric buses.
The first Whistler bus arrived this week, and BC Transit expects four of the 15 vehicles to be in place by the end of October 2026. The remaining 11 buses are slated for arrival in spring 2027.
BC Transit says the first new buses will be used for staff training before entering passenger service later in 2026, as the system prepares for operations with battery-electric propulsion and the supporting charging and maintenance requirements.
Whistler is expected to receive roughly half of its fleet from the new zero-emission buses, following the community’s earlier experience with a hydrogen bus rollout. Just over a decade ago, BC Transit introduced 20 hydrogen-powered transit buses for Whistler ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Those buses were later withdrawn in 2014 and replaced with conventional diesel buses, with high operating costs attributed largely to the lack of local hydrogen supply.
The 125-bus order is intended for eight provincially operated public transit systems: Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Nelson, Powell River, the Sunshine Coast, Greater Victoria, and Whistler. BC Transit says the first 10 vehicles from the same order entered service in Greater Victoria in spring 2025.
BC Transit says the broader project is jointly funded by federal, provincial, municipal, and regional governments and has a total cost of about $424 million. The cost includes the buses, charging infrastructure, and the construction or modification of operations and maintenance facilities needed to support battery-electric vehicles.
While battery-electric bus delivery is starting in multiple regions, BC Transit indicates that additional battery-electric buses are expected to eventually join fleets in the Fraser Valley after the initial deployment.
In its current operating footprint, BC Transit manages a province-wide fleet of about 1,200 buses, including more than 30 vehicles assigned to Whistler’s public transit system, which operates about a dozen routes.
The Whistler announcement comes as TransLink also pursues a broader transition to zero-emission transit in Metro Vancouver. TransLink is building infrastructure for battery-electric buses, including construction on the new Marpole Transit Centre on the South Vancouver waterfront near the Fraser River, next to the North Arm Bridge for the Canada Line.
TransLink says the Marpole Transit Centre is scheduled to open in 2028 and will occupy an 18-acre site with capacity to store, charge, and maintain about 340 battery-electric buses. TransLink also plans to introduce its first new-generation 40-foot, three-door trolley bus before the end of this year, with expanded off-wire operating capability.
TransLink has ordered a total of 275 trolley buses from European manufacturer Solaris to fully replace its aging trolley fleet, with the full order expected to arrive before the end of the decade.
For Vancouver-area riders and regional commuters, Whistler’s shift adds to the broader zero-emission timeline affecting British Columbia’s public transit systems, including the infrastructure and workforce training steps required to move from pilot deployments and mixed-fuel operations to sustained battery-electric service.
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