MORGANTOWN – To say 2018 was a challenging year for the Mountain Line Transit Authority is a bit of an understatement. The agency was tasked with finding a new location for its bus depot, relocating its operations and doing so without causing major interruptions to riders.
Thursday night, Mountain Line was honored for that effort earning five awards at the 34th Annual West Virginia Transit Excellence Awards.
Mountain Line General Manager David Bruffy was named the 2018 Transit Manager of the Year.
Mountain Line was also honored for the 2018 Best Manager Innovation for the system managing the move to its new depot on Fairmont Road in Westover, without service interruptions.
“This organization is simply spectacular,” commented Mountain Line Transit Authority board member Ron Bane on WAJR’s Talk of the Town with Dave & Sarah.
Mountain Line was notified in October 2017 that the city of Morgantown would not renew its lease for the bus depot formerly located on Garrett Street. Mountain Line, which had no prior notice and no transition plan in place, had to immediately being the process of finding new location for the bus depot and make the move.
Following a rushed search, the board approved the move to the current location on Fairmont Road in Westover in January and by August the doors were closed on the former downtown depot.
All told, Mountain Line condensed a process that typically would have taken 18 months into a six month window.
“Our marketing person got a standing ovation for that. The whole room stood up because when they read the paragraph about what happened, for our facility only having so much time to get out and not have any service interruptions during that time was absolutely amazing,” Bane said.
All of the bus routes had to be reconfigured to accommodate the move, including 12 major changes and four new routes had to be added as part of the transition to the new depot.
Mountain Line was also honored for the 2018 Best Marketing Program for its driver recruitment video; 2018 Passenger Increase Award; 2018 Driver of the Year went to Anne Cramer; and Justin Adams was honorable mention Maintenance Driver of the Year.