The Buzzer blog documented the travels of TransLink’s William Hui while he took public transit from Vancouver, British Columbia to Portland, then Salem, Oregon! In the last leg of his travels, William had the opportunity to tour around the Salem-Keizer Transit Centre in Oregon. 

While I was in Salen, Stephen Dickey, Director of Transportation Development at Cherriots (Salem-Keizer Transit), kindly gave me a tour of their system.

Stephen first showed me around their transit centre downtown. It has the capacity for 20 vehicles, but it was undergoing some rehabilitation when I visited. Hopefully they had the construction done quickly to get the buses back into the facility.

We then went for a quick visit to a maintenance yard, where Stephen showed me the garage, the wash bays as well as their heavy maintenance facilities.

Salem- Keizer has a fleet of approximately 100 vehicles, including paratransit and transit specifically for Medicaid.

The service is certainly growing – it is looking into implementing a U-Pass program, as well as a network structure modeled after three C’s: Centers, Corridors (primary frequent service lines), and Circulators (local lines connecting residential and outlying commercial areas to the corridors).

Our final stop was at Salem-Keizer’s newest park and ride, Keizer Transit Center. I was fortunate enough to visit on June 24th, which just happened to be the first day of operations at the state-of-the-art facility.

Currently serviced by four routes, it has the capacity to serve eight. The facility offers 52 park and ride stalls, and is at the forefront of sustainability and innovation.

At the centre of the facility is a building with a waiting area and crew room, outfitted with solar panels, a green roof, and rainwater collection for the rain gardens.

For passengers, there are washrooms, helpful information panels, including schedule information on television screens (real time information to be coming soon), and free WiFi! There are even electric vehicle charging stations.

Congratulations to Stephen and his team on the successful completion of such an amazing facility, and thank you Stephen for taking me around town!

Author: Angela Chang