Residents of Yountville and St. Helena in Napa County can now ride zero-emission buses, the Napa Valley Transportation Authority announced.

The Yountville Bee Line is a new, zero-emission bus featuring a bee design. It will provide free and on-demand service within the town of Yountville, maintaining the same service lines as the old Yountville Trolley.

In St. Helena, a new zero-emission bus features a monarch butterfly and replaces the old shuttle. It too will provide on-demand service, but it will cost a dollar.

The authority and transportation leaders held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially welcome the new rides.

The buses can travel 180 miles between charges and will save 30 cents per mile in maintenance, according to the Napa Valley Transportation Authority. Each bus will also eliminate 1,690 tons of carbon dioxide in a 12-year lifespan, which authority officials said is the equivalent of taking 27 cars off the road.

The authority said it has also installed charging stations for the buses at its Yountville and St. Helena corporation yards.

Katy St. Clair got her start in journalism by working in the classifieds department at the East Bay Express during the height of alt weeklies, then sweet talked her way into becoming staff writer, submissions editor, and music editor. She has been a columnist in the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 2015, she begrudgingly scaled the inverted pyramid at dailies such as the Vallejo Times-Herald, The Vacaville Reporter, and the Daily Republic. She has her own independent news site and blog that covers the delightfully dysfunctional town of Vallejo, California, where she also collaborates with the investigative team at Open Vallejo. A passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities, she serves on both the Board of the Arc of Solano and the Arc of California. She lives in Vallejo.