The City of Tucson, Ariz. and Sun Tran celebrated the opening of Sun Tran's Northwest Bus Facility. The 25-acre facility will store and maintain Sun Tran's expanding fleet of buses, and allows the continued expansion of transit service in the region.

Sun Tran's Northwest Bus Facility now has the capacity to operate and maintain 250 buses for the entire Tucson region. Although the $56 million facility is complete, Sun Tran will continue to operate approximately one-third of the service from another location.

Phase I was completed in 2005 and included the construction of Sun Tran Boulevard and the City fueling facility, with $8 million of Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funds and 1994 City of Tucson bonds.

Phase II was completed in 2009. It included the operations building and a portion of the maintenance facility and was funded with $29 million of Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) and FTA. The second phase, built to accommodate operation of up to 150 buses, included 17 bus bays to repair and maintain the fleet, a fare retrieval area, bus wash and dispatch center.

Phase III was completed in December 2011 and includes expansion of the maintenance building, a new administration building for regional transit operations and more bus parking. The third phase was funded with more than $16 million from FTA's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus program and $3 million in funding from the RTA. During its peak month of final phase construction, 186 local full-time jobs were created.