URBANA – Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District officials hope to have 23 new 40-foot buses on the streets by next April.

The MTD board Wednesday authorized spending about $13.1 million in federal, state and local funds to purchase the buses that will replace 1996- and 1997-era buses that have corrosion problems.

Further, MTD Managing Director Bill Volk said the MTD intends to buy 21 more new buses in fiscal years 2012 and 2013. If all the purchases are carried out, the MTD will have replaced more than half of its 100-bus fleet within three years. It bought its first nine hybrid buses in 2009.

All of the new buses will be diesel-electric hybrid models. The estimated per-bus cost is $570,000, Volk said.

Because the MTD is buying the buses through a consortium with either the state of Minnesota or the state of New York, it doesn't yet know if the supplier of the buses will be New Flyer Industries Inc. or Gillig Corp. The MTD operates buses made by both companies.

The transaction would be the largest dollar amount the MTD has devoted to a purchase of buses and the second-greatest number of buses it has acquired at once. In 2003 the MTD bought 33 buses.

Ordinarily it takes about 18 months from the time a bus order is placed to when the vehicles are delivered, said MTD Assistant Director Tom Costello. But the first seven of the new buses could be in Champaign-Urbana by February.

"It's just very fortuitous that we're going to be getting in when they're running a little slow," he said.

The corrosion problem with the older buses isn't so much a safety problem as a cost issue, Volk said.

"It's basically in the frame, particularly on the sides. It requires you to take the skin off and cut off part of the frame and weld steel back on the frame," he said. "Buses have corrosion issues mostly because of salt, and you're mixing different metals on the bus body and that creates corrosion. Aluminum by itself doesn't rust but when you slap it up against steel, that creates the potential for corrosion. It's extensive enough that you don't want to have something happen and you don't want to be unsafe."

He said the corrosion problem is not unique to the MTD.

"It is happening all over the country. In the snow belt you have that potential," Volk said. "That's why you ordinarily have a 12-year lifespan for buses, and then you get rid of them. Buses get cancer just like cars get cancer."

The addition of more hybrid buses will allow the MTD to reduce pollution and cut operating and fuel costs, he said.

"We feel that this helps in the long run with our delivery of service. We need to have buses that operate and operate efficiently on the streets," Volk said. "We buy a lot of fuel. We have to maintain those vehicles. And as we eventually move into more difficult financial situations, the best thing we can do is try to ensure that we have the best fleet that we can and one that will cost he least amount of money but provide the best service."

Once all the new buses are delivered, Volk said, the MTD will be "100 percent clean-burning." All other MTD buses will be equipped with particulate filters, he said.

Also Wednesday the MTD board learned that the district set a July record for ridership with 387,210 passengers – 13 percent more than a year earlier.