A third of Anchorage's buses are past their federal life span

Anchorage's People Mover has 63 full-size buses, and 26 of them are already past the age the federal government considers their useful life. The Assembly votes Sept. 15 on replacing six.

The Public Transportation Department wants to buy six new 40-foot diesel buses for up to $5.36 million. The ones they'd replace are running past a federal benchmark of 12 years or 500,000 miles and, as the department's director put it, "require an increased level of maintenance to remain in reliable operation."

That benchmark is a floor, not a mandatory retirement age, and Anchorage actually runs its buses longer, to a local target of 14 years. But with more than a third of the fleet over the federal line, the six new buses replace only a piece of the problem, and the department's memo does not say when the rest would be replaced.

The money comes from transit bonds and federal grants already budgeted over the past three years, and the buses would be bought off a Washington state contract rather than through a separate Anchorage bid. The department has run this same manufacturer's buses since 1995, keeping its parts, tools and mechanic training built around one platform.

Also on the Sept. 15 agenda: a $1.15 million purchase of two asphalt distributor trucks and a chip spreader for street maintenance.