Bus Rapid Transit comes to NAU

New to NAU on a year-round basis, the University has implemented its first ever stretch of one critical element of Bus Rapid Transit.

Bus Rapid Transit is a transit modality using buses as the transport vehicle but incorporating many of the advantages of a Light Rail transit system.

The feature most often associated with Bus Rapid Transit is either a busway completely segregated from and having little contact with other roadways, or a lane on existing roadway dedicated only to buses.

Today, NAU got the latter.

Open for the first time is a dedicated Bus Lane running westbound on Pine Knoll from the Forestry entrance driveway to McConnell drive.

Now when traffic congests along this stretch, our transit bus schedule will not be impinged. Riders upstream will get to their destinations faster; those downstream will see a bus arrive at their bus stop sooner.

These Bus Rapid Transit features, in combination with traffic police at key intersections, the implementation of Bus Staging at key bus stops, and the additional buses and vans now in service, will hopefully translate into greater service levels for our customers.

If this Bus Lane proves to be an asset to transit and NAU in general, a goal after traffic patterns and demographic futures can be assessed might be sectional expansion of Bus Rapid Transit in other areas of campus where needed.

MCT recognizes and thanks Project Manager D.H., the Grounds Crew who erected the signage, the Paint Crew who striped the roadway, and all others who contributed to this exciting development for University transit.

If you are interested in learning more about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), please click on the appropriate links in the right column under "Connections."

BBQ & potluck

Time slips due today by 10:00 am. Contact 50 if you cannot meet this deadline.

The new Bus Only lane is now open and operational on Pine Knoll between Forestry and McConnell drive. I'm sure there will be some confusion for awhile among other motorists, but this should help us greatly during our rounds. Please note: The bus lane is exclusively for buses and bicycles, except as the lane approaches an intersection where it can be used by other vehicles for making right turns. Please be watchful for vehicles moving in to the bus lane at those locations.

Tomorrow, 21 August 2009, we will hold our final summer BBQ by also including potluck dishes. Please bring something. We will also have the barby fired up so bring your appetite. Should be cookin' sometime around 11:30 am.

Finally, looks like our staging rehearsals are giving us some hope of its success. We are finding some of the kinks and working to minimize troubles. What we have yet to see is how all our drills and planning will be affected by the traffic that is yet to show up. We'll know on Monday.

Thanks again to everyone for the good jobs we did throughout the summer! Best of luck to everyone in school and work for this coming semester.

Fulltimers return

Mandatory meeting: SATURDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER, is a MANDATORY meeting for all department employees. Those who have a conflict and cannot attend must contact Erin. Time and location TBA.

Friday, 21 August, we'll have a POTLUCK and BBQ, celebrating the return of all our friends and fellow employees, and concluding a very busy and profitable summer. Bring what you can and maybe a buck or two to help pay for the BBQ essentials, and have a grand time! We'll be setting up about 11:30 am Friday.

Point Of Our Policy: Clean the washbay after washing any of our vehicles. If you don't have the time to rinse out the floor and put all equipment back after washing a vehicle, then schedule the wash for another time. Under no circumstances should we leave the washbay dirty.

Van driver certification training will be taking place during all of next week (first week of school) as well as 31 August and 01 September. This means the south portion of the Dome parking lot will be coned off during that time. Please respect those who will be van training and leave them plenty of room to maneuver around that parking lot.

Those van drivers working for MCT who do not yet have a University van certification card will be expected to complete the course themselves as soon as possible. You can sign up for that class by going online to nau dot edu, looking up Transportation Services Center, and clicking on "Van Training."

Major detour: A major detour is coming to Route 2 when San Francisco will be completely closed off to traffic at the Rec Center beginning 14 September and extending for the next several weeks. Transit plans regarding Route 2 buses and Route 2 Express Vans will be discussed soon.

We have been practicing the new Staging departure scheme under 50's direction the past few days. More drills will be taking place with the new hires and returning FTEs this week.

Time cards are due Thursday, 20 August, no later than 10:00 am.

If you have any items for The Slack Adjuster, please submit them to 61.

We finally got the last major striping and curb painting job finished last Friday. Tinsley pullout got the white exclusion line painted after the resurfacing of Knoles adjacent to Tinsley Hall was completed. The final line at Tinsley is dedicated to 77, who loved painting and really misses it.

This offset driveway entrance will be the Communications bus stop for our transit when all the construction is done with the Comm building extension.

In driver news, we've had two more former bus drivers tie the knot. Drivers formerly known as 79C and 84 (was it??) were married over the past weekend. Pictures to come.

In other news, 67 was injured while unicycling last Friday. Luckily, the injury was to her left foot, so she still hasta drive haha. Close one, 67.

Also, current driver and newlywed 84 (pictured below) had surgery to remove some malignancies on his forehead. He is doing fine, and boasted of receiving (how many was it now?) something like 26 stitches during the operation. Ahh, war wounds!

All of our returning summer workers and drivers and our newly returning FTEs, plus the new hires, met with our department manager Erin on Monday. She welcomed us all back and encouraged us to emphasize good customer service as we go about our routes. Thanks for stopping by, Erin!

Finally, driver 96 made a chilling discovery when a massively monster beetle decided to take a hike on him on Monday.

Panicking slightly, he quickly decided to remain calm and to provide the best customer service possible, recalling what our department leader had encouraged us to do earlier this morning.

Nevertheless, 83 found the challenging situation for our slighly panicking driver highly amusing.

In the end, 96 realized it was nearing lunch time, and decided to dispatch the critter in Rambo fashion.

Skillz course in full swing

Skillz course training continues in full swing at the Dome lot. We encourage everyone who has or is training for a CDL to practice in the course as much as possible. The course will be torn down Friday or Saturday.
Our beloved 79 introduced two new very difficult maneuvers in the Skillz course, events which will prove helpful to anyone driving a big vehicle over the lifetime of their CDL. Thanks, 79!!

On this event, a Right Turn is attempted. It is a tight right in which it is impossible simply to complete the maneuver in one forward motion.

Likewise, the new Left Turn cannot be completed in one forward motion. This teaches the driver how to successfully complete a turn as extremely tight as what one might find in any real situation.

Also introduced this year is the Lane Offset, which is nothing more than a simple lane change. However, it is extremely tight and must be done both forwards and backwards.

Coach 96 (left below) trains 78 in the Alley Dock, an event that duplicated on a more extreme level the old Alley Dock of the former CDL test event.