School buses stand parked next to the North Penn School District’s transportation center on the campus of North Penn High School in June 2024. Photo by Dan Sokil | The Reporter.
Site location still under wraps
The location itself still isn’t public, but North Penn officials are taking a closer look at another possible site for the district’s transportation center.
Board members have voted ahead a traffic study looking at an as-yet-unidentified site somewhere in Montgomery Township.
“This traffic study would evaluate any potential road improvements that may be needed, and this (study) would be needed to better estimate the cost of the project, if we were to purchase the property,” said Director of Facilities and Operations Tom Schneider.
Starting in early 2023, district officials and school board members have proposed renovations to North Penn High School, and said that current district transportation center — a bus maintenance garage, dispatch office, propane tank and fuel station, and parking for roughly 120 district-owned buses — located between the high school and Crawford Stadium would need to be moved offsite, to use that space for modular classrooms or a new wing, and construction staging.
Site plan showing North Penn High School at right, a proposed new addition to the high school highlighted in blue, the school’s current transportation center at center, and a proposed new transportation building at top in orange, as presented to the school board on June 4, 2024.In late February, administrators said they were in talks with a real estate broker about a possible site, then in early March, Upper Gwynedd’s board heard that the district was interested in 203 Church Road, a former warehouse and office site formerly owned by aircraft component manufacturer Triumph Controls, located next door at 205 Church.
After questions from residents about the traffic impact of that site, Upper Gwynedd announced that a late April zoning hearing for the North Penn site had been postponed until May, then in early May the district said that site was no longer feasible and they had turned their attention to another in Montgomery Township. However, the latest plans presented in early June showed an option for a new transportation center back on the high school campus, just north of the current building.
During the facilities and operations committee meeting on Monday night, Schneider gave an update, proposing a contract with traffic engineer Bowman Consulting to evaluate a new site. The administrator didn’t name the location specifically, nor did the contract documents included in the board’s meeting materials.
“The total fee for the study is $21,000, plus expenses, and the estimated amount of the expenses is $3,000,” Schneider said.
School buses stand parked next to the North Penn School District’s transportation center on the campus of North Penn High School in June 2024.Board President Tina Stoll asked about language in the contract documents that said some data collection had been done in early June, prior to the contract approval, and Schneider said that was done in order to get valid data while school buses, and students and parents, were still on the road.
“We needed to perform some traffic counts prior to the end of the schoolyear. The reason for that is, traffic counts are not performed between the end of June through September, because of the amount of traffic produced by the school district,” Schneider said.
“We had anticipated possibly getting an invoice for that, and we would just pay that invoice, but they included it with the full study,” he said.
Stoll then said she recalled a regional bus driver meeting held at the district roughly a decade ago, when drivers talked about the difference between school rush hours and afterward.
“Making a left turn onto (Route) 309, for example, at 7 a.m. is an entirely different matter than at 10 in the morning,” she said.
Schneider added that one benefit of moving the transportation center, including bus fueling stations and parking for the bus drivers, off the high school site would be a reduction in traffic there, when the bus drivers arrive and park their personal vehicles and then come and go from bus runs to the district’s elementary and middle schools.
“Our buses would be leaving the terminal between 6 and 6:30 (a.m.), well before the rush hour period. They would be returning between 9:30 and 10, after the rush hour, and leaving for their afternoon pickups between 1:30 (p.m.) and 2,” he said.
“The only impact we anticipate having, with the traffic in the area, would be at the return, when the buses return to the yard, which is somewhere around 4 p.m. Most buses are returned prior to 4:30, 4:45,” he said.
School buses stand parked next to the North Penn School District’s transportation center on the campus of North Penn High School in June 2024.After the committee voted the traffic study contract ahead for full board action in July, Schneider also gave an update on the high school renovation planning process. On June 20 the board authorized its architect and construction manager to develop formal plans for that latest design, with a new wing connecting the school’s A-pod and H-pod, minor additions near the current K-pod and J-pod, and new utilities and finishes throughout the school.
“If the property of interest does not come to fruition, and to a full purchase, we would keep transportation on site,” Schneider said.
And depending on the negotiations with that owner, other district operations could also be moved.
“We are developing some schematic layouts for the interior layout of the property, that could potentially house our transportation department, a contracted transportation department, and also the support services center and warehouse,” he said.
North Penn’s school board next meets at 7 p.m. on July 9 and the facilities and operations committee next meets at 7 p.m. on July 29; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.
