The University of Iowa will have new electric Cambus vehicles driving around campus in two years.

Six buses will be coming to the UI in 2026 after the university received a $16.4 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration in July. The funding will go toward the cost of the buses and other improvements to the Cambus system, including updates to the Cambus Maintenance Facility.

Debby Zumbach, associate vice president of finance and operations and director of UI Parking and Transportation, said in a press release the grant is “an incredible step forward for Cambus.”

“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,” Zumbach said.

The grant is “low or no emissions” funding, the release states, with the money reserved for projects involving zero-emission and low-emission transit buses and facilities that support them.

Mia Brunelli, UI Cambus operations manager, said in an interview with The Daily Iowan the grant will help the university achieve its goal of creating a more eco-friendly campus.

“The university has a lot of goals related to reducing carbon emissions on campus. Public transit is already a more environmentally friendly way to get around,” she said. “It takes a lot of cars off the road to put thousands of people on one bus throughout the day, so already doing good things there, but we could also do more to reduce our emissions on those vehicles by not using fossil fuels.”

The new six electric buses will replace the six oldest Cambus vehicles, which are from 2008, Brunelli said.

“Buses have a useful life of 12 years, so those buses are quite well past useful,” Brunelli said. “There’s not enough funding out there to replace buses in the time they’re supposed to be replaced. They’re very expensive. So this was also another way for us to be able to replace some aging buses with some newer buses.”

Brunelli said the university expects no interruptions in how Cambus routes are scheduled and planned once the electric buses arrive on campus. It is typically a two-year wait for buses, which is why they will arrive in 2026.

Additionally, the Cambus Maintenance Facility will see improvements from the grant. The current state of the facility does not allow for the housing of electric buses due to its low ceilings and other structural barriers. The proposed plan involves expanding the facility’s garage.

According to the release, the space includes new Cambus maintenance bays, maintenance office and support spaces, and more training spaces. The project moves Cambus employees currently working out of the West Campus Transportation Center near Kinnick Stadium to the current facility located near the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center on Madison Street.

The update will add around 20,000 square feet adjacent to the north side of the current facility and is expected to begin in summer 2025, the release states.

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Brunelli said there is a lot of excitement within Cambus staff surrounding the upcoming improvements to the garage.

“We’re almost doubling the size of it, and the maintenance spaces are going to be very, very much improved and have much better conditions and space,” Brunelli said. “Our full-time staff is very excited, and I think our student staff is excited for the positive change at Cambus, even though they might not necessarily be here when it happens in two years.”

Improvements to other areas of the university’s transportation are also on the horizon but not included in the grant funding, including Fleet Services, the UI’s vehicle rental service system. Fleet Services has been housed partially in the Cambus Maintenance Facility since the early 2000s, Rod Lehnertz, UI senior vice president for finance and operations, said.

“Our Fleet Services has been operating out of a trailer since a 2006 tornado, and they will be part of that building as well — finally inside a normal building, so we look forward to that,” Lehnertz said.

Brunelli said the federal grant will only go toward the Cambus sections of the garage as well as the electric buses.

“Fleet Services is also getting a new maintenance section and new offices on the building, which will look really, really nice, but they are funding that part of the project themselves,” Brunelli said.