Apr. 12—Vine buses have a new home at a $40 million maintenance yard on Sheehy Court near the Napa County airport.
The fleet of about 75 buses is headquartered at the recently completed Vine Transit Maintenance Facility. On Friday, the Napa Valley Transportation Authority held a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by a few dozen people.
The authority bills the new yard as giving the bus fleet room to grow and expand for a half century while keeping up with the latest technology. It has capacity for 12 electric bus chargers, and can be transitioned to supply hydrogen.
"This is a really big day for NVTA today," the agency's executive director Kate Miller told audience members. Nearby, a bus elevated on a lift in a maintenance bay served as a backdrop.
Miller acknowledged there had been some opposition to spending $40 million on a bus yard. She has long maintained that a new yard was needed to replace the 2-acre yard on Jackson Street in the city of Napa.
Transportation officials said the old yard was too small, couldn't be expanded, had the office in a trailer, lacked room for a modern bus wash and wouldn't allow for an electric bus fleet. The Vine has seven electric buses, soon to be 12 and counting.
People at the ribbon cutting gathered around the maintenance bays. The inside appeared as clean as an office — if there were any grease puddles on the floor or dirty rags, they couldn't be readily seen.
Ray Tellis of the Federal Transit Administration seemed impressed.
"This is a spectacular design," Tellis said. "I've seen many, many maintenance facilities ... but I haven't seen a facility this attractive."
State Sen. Bill Dodd, D- Napa, called the maintenance facility another milestone for the NVTA. He also mentioned the nearby Soscol Junction interchange under construction at Highways 29 and 221.
"It really shows off what they can do," he said. "Transportation funding and in particular investment in transit creates jobs. It's funding that goes to the private sector for engineering and design and for construction. It keeps the economy going in hard times. It is critical to help grow the economy in good times."
NVTA board chair Liz Alessio called the yard a key project for the agency's mission of providing safe, efficient and sustainable transportation choices.
The authority began its quest for a new bus maintenance yard in earnest in 2013. It worked on narrowing a list of 27 possible sites. In 2016, the agency agreed to buy the Sheehy Court site for $2.6 million, then broke ground on the maintenance yard in January 2022.
You can reach Barry Eberling at 707-256-2253 or [email protected]
___
(c)2024 Napa Valley Register, Calif.
Visit Napa Valley Register, Calif. at www.napavalleyregister.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
