City Gets 4 New Buses with Top-of-the-Line Features Share

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The City of Mar­i­on Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment is putting 4 more brand new bus­es in oper­a­tion this week. The 2019 bus­es have top-of-the-line safe­ty fea­tures includ­ing a rearview mir­ror which dou­bles as a video cam­era when back­ing up, heat­ed steps to melt the ice on frigid days, and a sys­tem which alerts dri­vers if the emer­gency exit is opened, to name a few. The new bus­es also cater to dri­vers’ com­fort with push-but­ton auto­mat­ic doors and con­toured seats.

Mar­i­on Tran­sit dri­vers expressed grat­i­tude to have the new bus­es with new fea­tures. ADA Para­tran­sit Ser­vice Dri­ver Lisa McClung stat­ed, ​“I’ve been dri­ving with the City for 13 years. Before, I drove a school bus for 6 years which didn’t even have air-con­di­tion­ing.” McClung said she looks for­ward to dri­ving her new bus with the new fea­tures. ​“The auto­mat­ic but­ton to open the doors in nice on your shoul­ders as opposed to pulling a lever repet­i­tive­ly. It’s also nice to have cam­eras installed on all the bus­es for us and our pas­sen­gers’ safety.” 

Trans­porta­tion Direc­tor Jeff Edwards with new buses

In 2 ½ years, the City has acquired 8 new bus­es, mak­ing the old­est bus in the 12-bus fleet a 2016. Four 2017’s were pur­chased in 2017. The bus­es were acquired from an Indi­ana Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (INDOT) grant where 80% is fed­er­al­ly fund­ed, 10% state-fund­ed, and 10% city-funded.

The four 2019 bus­es replace four 2010’s, which are cur­rent­ly up for sale.

ADA Para­tran­sit Ser­vice Dri­ver Lisa McClung in new bus

The new bus­es are the lat­est exam­ple of the City of Mar­i­on work­ing to keep Mar­i­on Tran­sit one of the best oper­a­tions in the state. 

It is free to ride the city bus­es which is one of many great cost-of-liv­ing attrib­ut­es of liv­ing in Marion.