Mar 19, 2021 2 min read

Greene County’s transportation department recently purchased seven new buses to add to its fleet.

According to Rick Blaker, transportation administrator, the buses were ordered last year after the county secured 100% of the funding through a capital equipment grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Seven of the buses had “reached a useful life,” Blaker said, either five years or 150,000 miles. They went to auction, and new ones were purchased through the PennDOT grant, without any county money being spent. The county announced the new buses being put into service earlier this month.

“Because of the pandemic, we’re nowhere near where we were with ridership before the pandemic, but they’re still on the road every day,” Blaker said.

All 17 buses in the county’s fleet are the same size, 12-passenger buses with room for up to two wheelchairs.

Blaker said that with more people being vaccinated and the number of COVID-19 cases staying low, ridership is starting to increase, as some of their customers are starting to leave the house again after months of isolation.

“Some of our senior population has been home for almost a year now,” he said. “We are seeing things start to open up again, so that’s a positive.”