Tag Archives: Access

Access bus opts to stop for school bus unnecessarily

The in basket: One day in June before school got out, I was stopped behind a school bus off-loading children on Mile Hill Drive where a center lane divides the two through lanes. I was behind the bus, so was beholden to stop for it. As often happens, there was a line of cars coming in the other direction, also stopped, although state law permits oncoming traffic to proceed when there is a lane, even a left turn lane, between the bus and the oncoming traffic.

At the head of that line was a Kitsap Transit Access bus. It’s very common to see a vehicle stopped unnecessarily in that situation, holding up any one behind it driven by someone who knows that law. But I wondered if Kitsap Transit buses are required, by law or policy, to stop for an oncoming school bus regardless of the exemption allowed everyone else. Kind of like buses being required to stop at railroad tracks where ordinary folks can proceed without stopping.

The out basket: Sanjay Bhatt, public information officer for Kitsap Transit, replied, “According to our training coordinator, state law does indeed contain an exception to the prohibition on drivers passing (an oncoming) stopped school bus unloading children. Drivers on a highway with three or more marked traffic lanes “need not stop” in this scenario. The law does not say drivers “shall not stop.” In other words, drivers have discretion.

“We don’t have a specific rule on this situation in our operator handbook, nor is there one in the state Commercial Driver License Guide. We train operators to put safety first. While we don’t know which ACCESS operator was driving the vehicle you observed, it’s reasonable to assume that either the operator didn’t know the legal exception or the operator knew the legal exception and chose to err on the side of caution based on what was happening out there on the road.

“We expect our operators to use their common sense and operate safely based on current conditions they encounter.”

What’s Transit building in West Bremerton?

 

The in basket: Every time I drive by Kitsap Transit’s operations base on Charleston Avenue in Bremerton’s west end, I wonder what they are building there, and whether construction in a time of service cutbacks is a PR headache for them.

The out basket: Yes, it is, says Transit CEO Dick Hayes, but it’s the old story of funding coming from sources that can’t be shifted to operations. “This is capital grant money that can’t be used for anything else,” he said.

Expanding operations bases is hard to get done, due to permit requirements, he said. This one was further complicated by the need to acquire the old Callow Avenue that runs between the operations base and the shipyard. They got the permits, acquired the street in a trade with the city for part of the Bremerton Transportation Center site, and had an approaching deadline to use the grant money. So they went ahead. 

The work will allow the Access bus service for the elderly and infirm to relocate to the operations base from its current site near the end of steep Werner Road.

It’s not a good place to operate out of when it snows, he said, and it puts extra miles on the the Access buses when they get the same preventative maintenance as the routed buses.

The $4.5 million project is adding a wash rack for the buses, more room for that preventive maintenance, and will double available parking, he said.

“Some day we’ll have more money to run more services,” he said, and the base expansion will pay off then, he said. 

Transit owns the Werner Road site and will sell it when Access moves, in about seven months, he said.

Though Callow Avenue will be closed to the public, Transit had to agreed to let the Navy use the property for emergency evacuation of its multi-story parking garage on the other side of the street, if that is ever necessary, Dick said.