Chasing Vapor: Why Pasadena’s “Green” Hydrogen Dream is a Multimillion-Dollar Nightmare
It is easy to understand why the City of Pasadena initially fell for the hydrogen pitch. On paper, “green hydrogen” sounds like the ultimate silver bullet for municipal transit: a fuel that is the most abundant element in the universe, offers long driving ranges, refueling times comparable to diesel, and emits nothing from the tailpipe but pure water vapor. For a city that prides itself on environmental stewardship, the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains seemed like the perfect backdrop for this green revolution.
But public policy cannot be built on paper promises, and the reality of the hydrogen economy is vastly different from the glossy sales brochures. As the global transportation market decisively shifts toward battery-electric solutions, Pasadena is stubbornly marching in the wrong direction. At the helm of this misguided parade is Pasadena Department of Transportation (DOT) Director Joaquin Siques, who is currently wasting critical city funds, resources, and time chasing a hydrogen dream that is rapidly evaporating before our eyes.
The “Green” Hydrogen Myth
To understand why Pasadena’s strategy is so structurally flawed, we first have to strip the “green” label off the fuel we are actually talking about. True green hydrogen is produced through a process called electrolysis, where renewable energy (like solar or wind) is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. It is a brilliant concept, but it is currently incredibly energy-intensive, wildly expensive, and practically non-existent at a commercial municipal scale.
The vast majority of the hydrogen available on the market today is “gray” or “blue” hydrogen, which is extracted from natural gas—a fossil fuel. The extraction process itself releases significant carbon emissions. By committing the city to a hydrogen-fueled transit fleet, DOT Director Siques is not actually untethering Pasadena from the fossil fuel industry; he is simply changing the plumbing. Without a guaranteed, robust supply chain of exclusively green hydrogen, the environmental benefits of these hyper-expensive buses disappear almost entirely. The city is effectively swapping one fossil-fuel-dependent system for another, cloaked in eco-friendly marketing.
A $150 Million Sunk Cost Fallacy
Despite these glaring fundamental flaws, Director Siques and the Pasadena DOT have doubled down. In late 2025, the DOT pushed through a $32 million contract to purchase 17 hydrogen fuel cell buses, boasting that it would transition nearly half the fleet to zero-emission by 2028. This purchase is just one piece of a staggering $150.7 million transit overhaul project that includes a specialized Transit Operations and Maintenance Facility and a massive, custom-built hydrogen fueling station slated for South Kinneloa Avenue in East Pasadena.
Siques has publicly framed this as a monumental achievement for an agency of Pasadena’s size. But is it an achievement, or is it a catastrophic misallocation of resources?
While the DOT pats itself on the back for securing state and federal grant funding to cover a portion of these upfront capital costs, they are actively ignoring the long-term operational cliff they are driving the city over. Hydrogen fuel is exponentially more expensive to produce, transport, and store than electricity. When the initial grants dry up, the burden of fueling, maintaining, and operating these boutique, highly complex vehicles will fall squarely on the city’s general fund. Why is the DOT Director gambling with taxpayer dollars on a volatile technology when the rest of the automotive and transit world has already crowned battery-electric vehicles (BEBs) as the undeniable industry standard?
The ARCHES Collapse: A Reality Check
If Director Siques needed a flashing red light to hit the brakes, the recent political and economic shifts provided a massive one. The entire premise of affordable green hydrogen in California relied heavily on massive federal subsidies. Recently, the landscape changed dramatically with the cancellation of over $1 billion in federal funding for the planned ARCHES hydrogen hub in California under the new administration.
With that funding stalled, the supply of truly green hydrogen is now highly uncertain, and major private investments are stalling right alongside it. This isn’t just a bump in the road; it is a structural collapse of the hydrogen supply chain. Yet, the Pasadena DOT has continued to operate as if it is still 2022.
Fortunately, some voices of reason are finally emerging at City Hall. Just today, Councilmember Rick Cole officially called for a pause on a $316,800 consulting contract with Stantec to push the hydrogen fueling station forward. Cole accurately pointed out that the broader market is shifting toward battery-electric systems, and without a robust green hydrogen supply chain, Pasadena’s grand plan could ultimately force devastating reductions in transit service just to cover the exorbitant fuel costs.
Operational Blindness and Neighborhood Risks
Director Siques’ insistence on this path speaks to a broader, troubling trend within the Pasadena DOT: a detachment from practical data and ground-level realities. This is the same department that has faced heavy local criticism for abandoning data collection from dozens of speed feedback signs around the city due to resource mismanagement and a lack of bandwidth. If the DOT cannot manage basic, low-tech traffic safety data, why should residents trust them to oversee a highly complex, high-pressure hydrogen fueling depot?
And that depot is a problem in itself. Pushing to build high-pressure hydrogen storage and fueling infrastructure at 159 S. Kinneloa Avenue introduces an entirely new, unproven variable into an East Pasadena neighborhood. It is an unnecessary risk for an unnecessary fuel.
The DOT claims that hydrogen is required because battery-electric buses supposedly cannot meet the range requirements of Pasadena’s fixed routes without doubling the fleet. But this argument rings hollow when transit agencies across the globe—in cities far larger and with much more demanding topographies than Pasadena—are successfully deploying and optimizing battery-electric fleets every single day. Battery technology is improving exponentially, standard charging infrastructure is becoming universal, and electricity prices are vastly more stable and predictable than boutique hydrogen.
Time to Unplug the Hydrogen Hype
Pasadena has a genuine opportunity to be a leader in zero-emission municipal transit. But true leadership requires the humility to admit when a strategy is failing and the agility to pivot toward a better solution.
Director Joaquin Siques is allowing bureaucratic stubbornness and the allure of a flashy, futuristic buzzword to blind him to economic and environmental realities. Chasing the hydrogen dream is no longer visionary; it is a profound waste of city funds, administrative bandwidth, and valuable time.
The City Council must listen to the alarm bells being rung by Councilmember Cole and local watchdogs. It is time to pause the hydrogen infrastructure contracts, cancel the reliance on a volatile, fossil-fuel-adjacent supply chain, and refocus Pasadena’s resources on the proven, sensible, and genuinely clean path of battery-electric transit. If they don’t, Pasadena taxpayers will be the ones left footing the bill for the DOT’s multi-million dollar white elephant.
