by Carrie Resch
Staff Writer
The Jacksonville Transportation Authority will be purchasing five new buses through a $1.2 million grant awarded by The U.S. Department of Transportation.
State and local money will be added to the grant to purchase the buses.
“There have been 21 primary buses purchased for mass transit operations in the last year at about $270,000 per bus,” said Steve Arrington, JTA’s director of strategic planning. Federal funds cover about 80 percent of the purchase cost and usually 10 percent comes form state funds and the other 10 percent from local funds. All the new buses will be equipped with wheel chair lifts and bicycle racks.
Buses are replaced based on federal guidelines when they get to a certain number of mileage, said Arrington, or around 12-13 years old when they have reached useful life because the cost to maintain them outweighs the expense of purchasing new buses.
The replaced buses will be declared surplus. They’ll be offered at market cost to adjacent counties or sold at auction.
Grants are requested almost every year or every other year to fund some replacements.
When the buses are sold at auction, the funds are used to purchase additional buses or bus equipment per state and city guidelines.
In one year, Arrington said, usually about five to 15 buses are purchased. It takes around eight or nine months to receive the new buses once ordered.
“Some of the buses are 18 years old and older that are still in use because they are still maintainable,” Arrington said. “We don’t get rid of them if they are fully serviceable.”
A 15-year-old bus was recently sold to the Clay County Council on Aging.