Improving the environmental footprint of maintenance facilities is on everyone's front burner, although the extent to which individual fleets' greening efforts are able to go in this direction can vary considerably depending on budgetary and other constraints.

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“We have some shops equipped with waste-oil heaters, burning our own generated waste oil,” says A. Duie Pyle's Miske. “Ideal shops will recycle everything they generate in waste product with certified recyclers, from batteries to tires. It's everyone's responsibility to maintain a clean environment; and with the number of providers, tools and services offered, there's no reason that every maintenance facility is not doing the right thing in this area.”

Even small changes can have a big impact. “Take lighting, for example. You can have all the lights you want, but if the inside of the lamp gets dirty you're getting only half the light, thus wasting half the light bulb's energy,” says Celadon's Bryant. “Designing lights to maximize their reflective capability can save a lot of energy.”

“We try to be green as much as we can, yet cost dictates what we can do,” notes Saia's Burger. “We use waste oil to heat our shops, for example, because there's a cost savings and a green benefit.”

Some fleets, however, are approaching environmental issues on a grand scale, redesigning shops from the ground up to be more green from the get-go, without compromising the work they are expected to do.

The City of Clarita, CA, has built a $32-million maintenance complex that includes a 22,000-sq.-ft. administrative building and a 25,000-sq.-ft. bus-repair facility whose green features save the municipality more than $1 million annually. The shop has seven maintenance bays, an automated bus wash/chassis wash system that recycles wastewater, a diesel fueling station, a compressed natural gas fueling station for public and transit use, and parking for 110 buses and 163 cars.

The building itself is green from the foundation up, built with straw bales, recycled wood, steel, carpeting and tile, while complying with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council.

In fact, this building's design exceeds California's energy-efficiency standards by 40%, according to Kris Markarian, a senior engineer at the transit authority and the project manager for maintenance facility.

“We wanted to show that…you can build a truly green maintenance facility of this size and scope,” she said. “It took one-and-a-half years to design it and two years to build it. The key was to balance things throughout — to show that there would be lower operating costs by going green.”

Other features include an under-floor air system, water-source heat pumps, a courtyard and native plant garden, a concrete parking lot made with 25% fly ash paving material, and efficient use of local, recycled materials. A huge photovoltaic array located on top of the bus-parking pavilion not only offers shade, but also allows the 12-acre facility to sell surplus electricity back to the local utility.

“That [array] saves us $40,000 a year,” says Markarian. “While it can't work for every fleet — we are based in a desert — it's an example of how a transit operator like us can go green but stay within budget at the same time.”

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