City Gets Four New Buses after 2-Yr. Delay from Pandemic Share

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Albeit delayed by the pan­dem­ic, the City of Mar­i­on is get­ting four new bus­es to replace the old­est in their fleet.

With the change-out usu­al­ly occur­ring every four years, the depart­ment expect­ed to receive new bus­es in 2021, but COVID-19 had caused a two-year delay. The sit­u­a­tion was chal­leng­ing for Mar­i­on Tran­sit. Mechan­ic Cory Rolph pro­longed the main­te­nance of the old­est buses.

“Those 2016 bus­es may now be brought forth to oth­er sys­tems who may want them, then, if declined, will be adver­tised for sale in the paper, and we’ll take bids,” explained Trans­porta­tion Direc­tor Jeff Edwards. 

The four new 2024 Ford E450s offer sev­er­al new safe­ty and acces­si­bil­i­ty fea­tures. Those include improved non­slip fea­tures for entry and exit, repo­si­tioned hand rails and a ceil­ing rail added to the left side, improved retract­ing seat­belts, bet­ter fea­tures for dri­vers, dig­i­tal sig­nage repo­si­tion, and improved Span­ish signage.

The City pays 10% of the cost of the new bus­es while the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment pays 80% and the state pays the remain­ing 10%. The City is able to meet their 10% oblig­a­tion from rev­enues received from Transportation’s bus wrap adver­tis­ing pro­gram, elim­i­nat­ing the need to use tax­pay­er dol­lars to offer this ser­vice at no cost to the community.

The new bus­es should be ready for the road by ear­ly Octo­ber after license plat­ing and adding City of Mar­i­on identification.