PAT’s west mifflin garage

Last week, Alex and I went to the Alternative Transportation Festival at the Southside Works. We saw representatives from GASP, BikePGH and the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT). PAT was there to highlight their new Hybrid Gillig Busses, and they sent the director of the West Mifflin garage, Dennis Parish, to share the story. Alex and I spoke to Dennis for quite awhile at the festival and he, probably sensing our interest, invited us back to the garage for a tour! We, of course, took him up on the offer.

We found Dennis’ office after entering a side door (we didn’t know where to go in!), and Dennis was really gracious to drop his work, grab a two-way radio, and walk with us around the facility. We saw the scheduling area, the “pick” (bid) board, the break room, the dispatch desk, the holding area for busses, the bus wash, the maintenance facilities (paint shop, body shop, engine shop, A/C shop) and the parking lot outside.

He highlighted some of PAT’s environmental initiatives, including recycling bus wash water, using rainwater (in part) for the bus wash, and recycling oil and other engine fluids. They also, more expectedly, save money and “recycle” by retreading tires, re-milling brake drums (a maximum of 8 times), and rebuilding many of the bus’ engine components (most of this work is done at the PAT facility in Manchester, however). Dennis runs a tight ship, and everything is rather neat inside the building, though dirty with grease and oil.

Dennis has a great relationship with his employees–they all wave to him, and him to them. He said his policy was to pretty much leave people alone to do their work. That implies a lot of confidence and respect for him by his employees, and vice-versa.

Believe it or not, the bus garage is pretty empty during the day–many of his workers come in at night to clean the busses, he said. Maintenance is done during the day, but the facility is in operation almost 24 hours a day. Some operators, he said, even end up sleeping at the garage! Dennis said his scheduling rule of thumb was “to have my people here when the busses are here–no sense in paying them to sit around waiting for a bus”. Can’t argue with that.

Alex and I were both amazed at the level of autonomy Dennis reported–he has his own budget, orders his own supplies/parts, and is responsible for having enough busses to cover his routes. If they are short, he “asks the foreman to fix more busses”. No borrowing from other garages!

We couldn’t take pictures without the approval of media relations, which we didn’t seek (yet), so no pictures to share on this one, and it’s hard to remember all the things we saw and spoke about–Dennis was really kind in sharing his time and extensive knowledge with us, and we both appreciate his generosity. For a governmental organization, PAT is really great–they seem really community-focused, responsive and they appear to be making a genuine effort to serve their constituents. Next time you complain about the fair increases, remember this: it really costs PAT ~$13 dollars for your $2.25 ride!