Bus-riding students in the Morgan Hill School District may be
riding in style soon, as district Director of Transportation Linda
Evaro has applied for a grant from the Bay Area Quality Management
District for school bus replacement.
Bus-riding students in the Morgan Hill School District may be riding in style soon, as district Director of Transportation Linda Evaro has applied for a grant from the Bay Area Quality Management District for school bus replacement.
“I’m excited to bring this to you tonight,” Evaro said as she presented the grant to School Board trustees during their Nov. 15 meeting. “We have the second largest fleet of pre-1977 buses in the state, followed only by Stockton … We are so proud of our staff drivers and our mechanical staff who have kept these buses in wonderful condition.
“The CHP has come out year after year, and our buses have passed year after year with flying colors. Unfortunately, time stands still for no man or for no school bus.”
The district owns 30 large buses and 23 vans, including 17 buses built before 1977; the total state funding from this grant would be $900,000, to purchase eight buses, at a cost of $80,000 plus the $5,500 for each bus for additional hardware.
The money could come from special reserves, Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini said during the meeting, if there were no other unrestricted funds available.
The program is a “first-come, first-served” program, Evaro said, so she had someone standing in line to deliver the application in San Francisco by the deadline. The deadline to order new buses through the program is Jan. 31; they should be delivered and diesel emission control devices installed by the end of 2005, if the district receives the grant.
Participating school districts will also be required to install a diesel particulate matter retrofit device on all other eligible diesel buses in their fleet. The cost is approximately $8,500 per bus; the air district would cover 100 percent of the costs to retrofit the six buses built in 1991 and after. The air district would also pay $500 per bus to pay for ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel.
Evaro told trustees that state law stipulates that all commercial diesel vehicles must be using the “green” fuel by July 2006.
Evaro said the district’s boundaries cover 296 square miles; the district transports one student to Palo Alto, and two to Santa Cruz. In regular routes, district buses last year traveled 602,032 miles.
