SEPTA to Provide 10 Buses to the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority

April 12, 2006

Event: SEPTA to Provide 10 Buses to the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority, Along with 1,500 School Books Collected by Conestoga High School Students

Date: Thursday, April 13, 2006

Time: 10 a.m.

Place: SEPTA Midvale District, 4301 Wissahickon Avenue, Philadelphia, PA

Details: In keeping with efforts to help New Orleans recover from last year’s devastating hurricane season, SEPTA will present officials from the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA) with 10 of its recently retired buses.

The transit officials will also be joined by Conestoga High School (Berwyn, PA) student, Katie Markel, who helped collect approximately 1,500 used books in a book drive to support W. L. Abney Elementary School in Louisiana. The books will be loaded onto the buses before their departure to New Orleans.

The RTA bus operators and officials, who also accepted 10 retired SEPTA buses during a visit to Philadelphia in February, will drive the buses back to New Orleans for use in helping restore transit service in their city.

The retired buses are an average of more than 15 years old and have traveled thousands of miles across the SEPTA system. After being retired from SEPTA service they would normally be liquidated and sold for a minimal amount of money as scrap metal. At the RTA's request, however, SEPTA has agreed to provide the best of its retired fleet to them for continued use.