Calif.’s San Luis Obispo Regional Transit Authority (RTA) recently broke ground on a new bus operations and maintenance facility. Top 10 global design firm, Stantec, planned and designed the bus facility, which will play a vital role in the RTA’s ability to deliver safe, reliable transit services for San Luis Obispo County.

In support of the agency’s wide coverage area, the facility was programmed to operate, service, and maintain RTA’s entire fleet and serve as the headquarters for the agency. The facility will house the approximately 65 transit vehicles that will dispatch out of this location. The remainder of the future 112 vehicle fleet will dispatch from RTA’s several small park-out facilities across the county.

The 27,500-square-foot operations and maintenance facility will include parking for up to 67 public transit vehicles, as well as 84 visitor and employee vehicles, and will include five repair bays, parts storage, and locker rooms. The facility — designed with efficiency in mind — reflects the agency’s close-knit, family atmosphere, and will feature a large shared breakroom that opens out to an employee patio.

The RTA facility is designed to meet the requirements of California’s Green Building Code (CalGreen). The sustainable building design completely eliminates the operational use of fossil fuels on-site, maximizes the potential for photovoltaic power generation on the building roof and over vehicle parking, utilizes ultra-local building materials, and has been designed to accommodate a future all-electric vehicle fleet to be implemented by 2040.

“It’s exciting to see the San Luis Obispo RTA bus operations and maintenance facility reach this critical milestone,” said Will Todd, Stantec project manager. “This is a project that will truly belong to the people who use it. We worked closely with San Luis Obispo RTA to design a sustainable, high-performance facility designed to meet the comfort of the agency’s workforce, with ample room for future growth.”

Stantec provided architecture, civil engineering, survey, landscape architecture, mechanical and plumbing engineering, industrial architecture, telecom design, and fire protection engineering on the project. The San Luis Obispo RTA bus operations and maintenance facility is scheduled to be complete in late 2021.