WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) -- Wausau officials approved the purchase of additional transit buses. Transit Director Greg Seubert says they were able to find four available from Milwaukee County Transit and four more from Ozaukee County. Seubert says it’s a good thing, because some of their late 1990’s model buses were showing signs of trouble. “Unfortunately, in June, we did our annual safety inspections, and we were forced to remove six additional buses from service due to structural corrosion and frame cracks, so it became even more critical to find some used vehicles.”
Seubert says the replacement buses are slightly newer, but have around half-a-million miles on them, just like their fleet. He says the difference is these newly acquired buses have stainless steel frames that hold up longer.
The Director says gaining eight and losing six buses doesn’t give them many spare vehicles. “That gives us a couple of spares, but not a lot. We’re trying to make do as best we can with the numbers we will have available, but without this purchase, we would not have had enough when we need to add extra service when school starts in a couple of weeks.”
Wausau is one community where school-age children make a big impact on municipal bus ridership. Seubert says extra buses run with the regular routes to accommodate the kids. “We add ten additional routes during the school year to handle the influx of student-aged kids, and without that additional capacity, we would have been hard-pressed to accommodate them.”
The Wausau City Council approved spending $30,400 for the eight used buses.