10 | Yolo County Transportation District
Research, Pacific Gas and Electric Company,
the Yolo Solano Air Quality Management
District and FTA (then called UMTA) were
partners in the endeavor. The use of CNG as
a daily practice began four years later, and,
in the two-plus decades since, Yolobus CNG
buses have traveled more than 24 million
miles with the low-emission fuel – a distance
that, as Bassett takes great pride in pointing
out, is enough to circle the Earth more than
1,000 times.
The district built a CNG facility where
fuel is available to the public at roughly a dol-
lar less per gallon equivalent than gasoline.
Outside companies, likeWaste Management
of Woodland, and private car owners use the
CNG public dispenser.
“One of the biggest early challenges for
the transit industry was to show engine man-
ufacturers that there was enough reason to
start building bus-sized CNG engines,” he
says. “But we, and most notably Sacramento
Regional Transit District and Sunline Tran-
sit, kept encouraging them and we stayed the
course and, slowly but surely, the technology
improved. There is a lot of natural gas avail-
able in the U.S. and it’s a cheaper commodity
than diesel or gasoline.”
In 2000, Yolobus negotiated an agree-
ment, including financial participation, with
Congressmen Mike Thompson and John Garamendi at Yolobus facility dedication
