New Facility Open House May 6, 2011

Wednesday, 13 April 2011 14:36

The Butler Transit Authority is pleased to announce that a public open house to tour the Authority’s new transit center will be held Friday, May 6th, 2011 at 1:00 p.m. The transit center is located at 130 Hollywood Drive, Butler. Those interested in attending will be asked to park in the former Shop n Save parking lot of Pullman Square. A Butler Transit Authority bus will transport guests from the parking lot to the new facility. 

The new transit center consists of an Administration building that houses offices for the Butler Transit Authority and the Alliance for Nonprofit Resource’s Butler Area Rural Transit (BART) and Medical Assistance Transportation Program (MATP). Behind the Administration building is a Maintenance building that includes an automatic wash bay. The facility also encompasses an enclosed storage building to house the Transit Authority’s fleet as well as BART’s paratransit buses.

The facility is set to be commissioned as the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) transit facility in the state of Pennsylvania. The initiatives include: a geothermal heating/cooling system, a wash-water reclamation system, waste oil burners, skylights, recycled tile and carpet, low VOC paint, motion sensors as well as other energy efficient and “green” principals.

The new transit center is located on the site of the former Pullman-Standard Railcar Company. As a tribute to the approximately 30,000 employees that worked for the Butler plant of Pullman-Standard, the Transit Authority prominently displays a restored covered hopper car built at the Butler plant in June of 1974. Transit Authority Board Member, James Diamond worked with GATX Corporation, Kasgro Rail Corporation, Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad, AK Steel, Steighner Crane Service and Butler Township Commissioner Dave Zarnick for the donation, restoration and movement of the car from Saskatchewan, Canada to Butler. Tours of the facility will be held after the 1:00 p.m. public dedication of the historic railcar.