The San Luis Obispo Regional Transit Authority, or RTA, is working to bring cleaner and more sustainable buses to the Central Coast.
RTA is getting almost $6.3 million of federal money to improve transit systems. It’s the most funded project by the Department of Transportation in all of California.
The wheels turn from San Miguel to Santa Maria with each bus averaging 4,000 miles in a month.
RTA currently operates and houses buses off of Tank Farm Road in San Luis Obispo, but executive director Geoff Straw said an upgrade is long overdue.
"We have a growing senior population and commuter population and our current facilities, it served us well, but we’ve just outgrown it," said Straw.
The grant allows RTA to build a new bus maintenance facility and a design for it is already on the drawing board.
A new garage allows for more storage for these buses, more sustainable buses and cleaner buses.
These buses last about 15 years, posting about 800,000 miles.
The new space is about three times the size of the current operations headquarters.
?RTA bought the new land on the corner of Prado and Elks with CAPSLO, which just cut the ribbon for its new homeless facility, 40 Prado.
Chief operating manager of CAPSLO, Jim Famalette said the joint use of the land will benefit everyone.
"Two organizations in the community got together and created this collaboration that really ends up benefiting both the organization but especially all of the community individuals that we support both with RTA and the homeless services," said Famalette.
A new RTA administration office will also be constructed on the property.
The new location of the facility will not change bus routes. Straw hopes to break ground on the new facility sometime October 2019 with full functions by the end of 2021.
