Another Ride On bus caught fire, the latest involving Montgomery County’s shuttle-style public buses.
Though Tuesday’s fire involved a different engine manufacturer than four other fires that have occurred since September 2010, the county’s bus driver and mechanic union is seeking federal intervention to pull all the shuttle-style buses off the road.
“The danger — not just to our members but to the general public — is falling on deaf ears,” said Gino Renne, president of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 1994. “One bus fire was more than enough.”
The county says it pulls the buses if a systemic flaw is found, but believes the fires are not related. A February fire was caused by a broken part that set the parking brake unexpectedly, said county spokeswoman Esther Bowring. All buses have since had the part replaced. Other fires were caused by water leaking into electrical systems, a stuck brake shoe and a pinched brake line.
It’s too early to know what caused the latest fire, which began in the engine compartment of an out-of-service bus around 3:36 a.m. Tuesday on Georgia Avenue near the Glenmont Metro station, according to the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service. The driver was not hurt.
It was a gas-powered 2007 Champion/Chevrolet bus, not the diesel 2007 Champion/International models that previously caught fire. The two models share the same company for the enclosure, but the cab and chassis, including most of the mechanical parts, have different manufacturers, Bowring said.
But Renne said the buses are retrofitted trucks that union members warned county officials years ago would not stand up to transit use.
The county is replacing the International buses over the next six months, Bowring said, while the Chevrolet model won’t be replaced until 2015.
Renne also blamed the lack of resources for their maintenance. Montgomery County had 2.7 buses for every mechanic in 2010, union vice president Frank Beckham said, but has since lost mechanics to attrition, pushing the ratio up.
Metro has a 1.6 bus-to-mechanic ratio. Nine other major public agencies nationwide listed in a recent Metro report all had ratios less than 2.3.
