Union: Mechanics warned MontCo of problems before purchase
A Ride On bus caught fire Tuesday morning, the fourth such blaze in 17 months on a shuttle-style bus that the system’s own mechanics warned Montgomery County not to buy.
But the county is continuing to operate the remaining 46 buses of the model on local roads.
| Ride On fires |
| • Tuesday: 7:42 a.m. Columbia Pike/Route 29 near Oak Leaf Drive in White Oak. The bus was out of service with only the driver aboard. No one was hurt. |
| • Dec. 27, 2011: 4:13 p.m., Goldsboro Road and Massachusetts Avenue near Glen Echo |
| • Dec. 30, 2010: Marinelli Road near the White Flint Metro |
| • Sept. 8, 2010: 8400 block of Colesville Road in Silver Spring |
“We don’t have a reason yet to not put them on the road,” Montgomery County General Services Department Director David Dise told The Washington Examiner. He said the county was still investigating the cause of the latest fire and has asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to help.
“Our commitment is to safety,” he said. “We identify the problem and if it’s a problem we believe is endemic to the species, we fix it.”
The county does not have enough buses to cover all the routes without the remaining 46 buses, which make up about one of every eight buses in the 390-vehicle fleet, Dise said. He said they are trying to balance safety concerns with riders’ transit needs. Crews are inspecting all the buses for obvious problems before sending them onto the roads.
But the union representing the approximately 600 bus drivers and mechanics said the buses never should have been bought.
“They’re a safety hazard not only for the driver but for the riders,” said United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 1994 President Gino Renne. “And it was a complete waste of taxpayer money.”
The union “strongly urged” the county not to buy the buses in 2007, Renne said. The mechanics had researched them and found they were an “absolutely inappropriate purchase” that wouldn’t be suitable to the demands of driving on local roads, he said.
But the county bought about 50 of the 2007 Champion model buses (more than the 40 that Dise told The Examiner after a December fire). The county needs smaller buses to navigate some of the narrow roads and sharp turns in parts of the county, such as Takoma Park, Dise said. The buses, which look more like airport shuttles than typical city buses, cost $175,479 each, he said.
The county now plans to replace all of them within the next 18 months, Dise said.
The buses are still relatively young. The lifespan of a Metrobus that receives a midlife overhaul, by contrast, is about 15 years.
The series of blazes, first reported by The Examiner, have been the only fires on the Montgomery County bus service since at least September 2010.
After the December fire, the county replaced a circuit breaker in all the buses, Dise said. The county also made other changes to the fleet after the other fires.
The county’s maintenance is not to blame, Dise said, as the county is up-to-date with all preventive maintenance. The bus that caught fire Tuesday was last serviced for preventive maintenance on Dec. 18.
