The Golden Empire Transit District, better known as GET, has taken on a brand new look and has added much needed improvements to their service. The Bakersfield community will receive easy boarding and pollution-free buses by early April.
“We have purchased 24, compress natural gas buses with boarding ramps, replacing the diesel polluting, and safety hazard steps,” said Chester Moland, chief executive officer of GET.
GET has been planning the project since March of 2005.
“GET tries hard to come up with improvements to make travel safer for the handicapped and people of Kern County,” Moland said.
According to GET Coach Operator Barbra Oliver, the new fleet of buses feature bigger engines and a floor-mounted emergency break, which was previously on the dash. Oliver also said that the steering wheel is small and has better power steering, which makes the vehicle easier to drive. In addition to that, the new buses feature a mechanism that allows the bus to tilt toward the curb to allow easier and safer boarding for riders.
“GET has out-done themselves this time,” Oliver said.
Other changes feature new ramps, a wider walkway, and grips for the wheel chair ramps. The new buses host an indigo-colored header sign that is supposed to make the route more visible to riders. The new buses are 40 feet long, up five feet from the 35-foot older buses, but the longer length of the buses is of little or no significance.
“We will be phasing out the 35-feet buses with the 40-feet buses, the seating capacity of 38 is identical. There was an extra 5 feet added to compensate the new boarding ramps on the 40 feet buses,” said Moland.
According to Moland, there is no transit bus nationwide built to transport more than two wheelchairs, however GET is in the process of ordering wheelchair accessible vans to accommodate a wheelchair rider left at a bus stop because the wheelchair spaces were filled.
The driver would call the dispatcher and the dispatcher would send the van to transport the rider left behind.
BC student Barbra Williams said that she likes the older buses better.
“The seats are more comfortable,” Williams said.
According to Moland, there is a heavy ridership to Bakersfield College.
“There are five buses to BC, every 30 minutes, there is no way I can estimate how many of the riders are BC students. BC is one of our key boarding and transfer stations,” said Moland.
According to Gina Hayden, marketing manager of GET, there is a great advantage for BC students to take the bus.
“We have bus No. 1 leaving BC serving the Oildale and Rosedale area; bus No. 4 leaving BC?to the downtown transit center; bus No. 5 leaving BC making several stops and ending up at Valley Plaza; Bus No. 11 leaving BC enroute to CSUB; and bus No. 17 the express bus that will take you directly to Valley Plaza, to our transfer station.”