Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus will add nine more battery-electric buses to its fleet after the city secured a $3 million grant from the Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee, a regional body that invests vehicle-registration fees in clean-air projects across Southern California.

The MSRC approved the funding at its Thursday, Aug. 20 meeting, according to Santa Monica Next. City Manager Oliver Cho announced the award in his weekly newsletter, noting that the Department of Transportation had applied for the maximum available allocation back in April.

The $3 million will serve as the local match for the nine buses. The full purchase price was not disclosed, and it remains unclear how much additional federal or state funding will cover the remainder.

The fleet is growing fast.

Big Blue Bus now operates 34 battery-electric buses, up from 19 at the end of fiscal year 2023-24. Another 30 zero-emission buses are scheduled for delivery in 2027, and the nine covered by the new MSRC grant will push the pipeline further toward the agency's goal of a fully zero-emission fleet by 2032.

The grant comes just months after the city broke ground April 9 on a $56 million zero-emission fleet and charging infrastructure project, funded largely by a $53.3 million state Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program award. That project includes an overhead gantry charging system built to power up to 195 buses and was described as one of the largest state grants in Big Blue Bus history.

At the April 9 groundbreaking, Transportation Director Anuj Gupta called the buildout "a transformation of how we deliver transit service … We're building the foundation for a cleaner, more efficient system that benefits our riders, our workforce and our community."

The electrification push coincides with rising ridership. Big Blue Bus is on pace to exceed 10 million annual riders for a second consecutive year, after crossing that threshold for the first time since the pandemic in the prior fiscal year.

No next public meeting date or comment deadline related to the MSRC grant has been announced. The 2027 bus deliveries and the 2032 fleet deadline remain the key milestones ahead.