U.S. Department of Energy | Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

April 8, 2010

Colonial Williamsburg Switches to Alternative Transportation (Text Version)

This is a text version of the video segment Colonial Williamsburg Switches to Alternative Transportation, which aired on April 8, 2010.

JOHN DAVIS: Our success story this week takes us back in time to Colonial Williamsburg, where natural gas-powered transit buses seem a bit out of place in this hotbed of 18th-century Americana.

The popular living-history museum has been using alt-fuel vehicles to transport visitors since 1995. Their bus service center—just down the road—houses close to 20 buses with an easy-to-use CNG filling station nearby.

Colonial Williamsburg also uses three electric mini-trucks for their landscaping and hotel maintenance needs. The pint-sized vehicles can only go 25 miles an hour—an ideal speed for travel on Williamsburg grounds. Workers plug it into a regular outlet to charge their batteries overnight and can use it the following morning for a full day's work.

Colonial Williamsburg has been at the forefront of the alt-fuel movement—combining our love of America's past with greener technologies for America's future.