Marty Mellera

Manager of Climate Action, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency

Within a few years of coming to work for the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), Marty Mellera became Muni's Historic Streetcar Engineer, a coveted job that he could still have today had he not chosen the greater challenge of working with emerging fuels and technologies to meet ambitious local and state environmental goals for Muni's parent agency, The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA). In 2003, Marty was busy procuring hybrid buses, and working on the requisite change in state law, when he attended a lecture on the city of Berkeley's biodiesel use, which featured speakers Randall von Wedel and Dave Williamson, the biodiesel pioneers behind the program. Marty describes that day, when he learned about the ease with which biodiesel could deal an immediate and decisive blow to a host of diesel bus pollution problems, as magical. The magic also motivated him to buy a diesel New Beetle for himself, something that clinched the deal when he filled it up with biodiesel, drove it, and experienced first-hand that it worked, and it worked beautifully.

In 2000 the California Air Resources Board (ARB) was forcing transit agencies to choose a fuel path, either diesel or alternative fuels, which at the time meant one only thing - natural gas. The South Coast Air Quality Management District had passed legislation that outlawed the purchase of diesel buses in their district in the late 1990s, and soon almost all of Southern California's transit fleets had converted to natural gas. Statewide, there was tremendous pressure on transit agencies to do the same. Most northern California transit agencies chose the more flexible diesel path, which also allowed for the purchase of natural gas buses. When Muni did so, it created a political firestorm. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors formed an Independent Oversight Committee (IOC) comprised of members from NRDC, American Lung Association, Sierra Club, and PG&E. Working with the IOC, Marty and Jared Blumenfeld, then head of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, began developing a clean air plan, which included the testing of emerging fuels.

As part of these research and development efforts, two natural gas buses were purchased and tested. But, with less torque and fuel tanks weighing as much as a passenger car on the roof, they did not perform well or reliably on SF's hills, and the pilot was discontinued in favor of electric-drive diesel hybrid buses. All together, Muni had several hundred Metro streetcars, historic streetcars, and world-famous cable cars, but the rest of the fleet was roughly ½ conventional diesel buses and ½ electric trolleys (rubber-tired buses with motors powered by electricity from overhead wires connected by poles on the roof). The electric trolleys, which have been taking passengers up SF's hills since 1935, are fueled by hydroelectric power from the city-owned Hetch Hetchy power station, making them zero-emissions vehicles. As a critical part of the clean air strategy for the other half of the bus fleet, Marty chose biodiesel and got the IOC to agree.

Muni's Clean Air Plan: Zero Emissions 2020, a program for reducing emissions and fossil fuel use, employs a three-pronged approach: first, to build on Muni's existing electric drive technology, maximizing alternative bridge technologies like hybrid diesel buses; second, to move to cleaner and more sustainable fuels like biodiesel; and, third, to clean up any remaining emissions by using particulate filters and replacing old engines. Right now, Muni has 312 electric trolley buses and 86 diesel hybrid buses. Marty says that within 5 years Muni's entire remaining bus fleet will be electric-drive, bringing the number of diesel hybrids to over 500.

Marty was one of the major players behind Mayor Gavin Newsom's 2006 executive order, which required the entire San Francisco City/Co diesel fleet to convert to the use of B20 and made it the largest municipal fleet in the world to do so. A remarkable collaboration among other key city officials, including Karri Ving of the SF Public Utilities Commission, Mike Ferry of the SF Fire Department, and Vandana Bali of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, accomplished this impressive achievement within one year. Since then, elements of San Francisco's biodiesel fueling program have experienced some challenges related to underground storage tanks, sometimes having to move to lower blends for a time to comply with state regulations.  Committed to providing the support that Muni staff needs to successfully handle biodiesel, Marty conducts weekly maintenance meetings and reports that Muni has resolved all issues related to single-walled tanks, in one case by adding aboveground storage.  

Under Marty's leadership, Muni has voluntarily reduced NOx emissions by 25% in all of its diesel buses and plans to reach out to ARB in the future to discuss moving to higher biodiesel blends. The use of biodiesel is San Francisco's primary strategy for reducing municipal greenhouse gas emissions.

Marty says that they are on schedule, but still 5-10 years away from full implementation of the zero emissions plan and that after a decade of working at this scale and level of complexity, there are still a number of things they need to work on. One of the biggest challenges is to get state-of-good-repair costs estimates automatically included in budgets and grants. On the positive side, Marty is working in collaboration with other city agencies on biodiesel brokering issues, and together they are very focused on simple ideas like doing their own blending, which Marty believes can save 25 cents per gallon and allow them to work better with local producers providing deliveries of B100.

Had Marty remained SF's Historic Streetcar Engineer, his job would have been easier, but even with all of its challenges, Marty says his job is a luxury. "I consider it an honor that I get to contribute to what this amazing city is doing to address the very real problem of climate change, and sometimes I just have to pinch myself." California's biodiesel industry has benefited tremendously by having someone as committed as Marty working so hard and so smart to incorporate biodiesel into cutting-edge fleet strategies. And speaking of cutting-edge, just in case you were wondering whether you can reduce overall fuel costs by using a bit of biodiesel in your hybrid-diesel that happens to share the load with a small hydrogen fuel cell on board, Marty is the guy to talk to. In fact, he's the only guy in the world who has set up a pilot for that.