Students in St. Charles Parish are traveling just a bit more comfortably these days.
A process that began six years ago is now finalized: all of the parish’s school buses now include air conditioning units, likely much to the relief of riders at the tail end of a summer that stood as one of the hottest in recent memory.
The decision was made six years ago to retrofit existing buses with air conditioning and to purchase any new buses with air conditioning included.
“We’ve been seeing them done gradually for the past six years, and now all of the buses in our fleet have A/C,” said Patrick O’Malley, Administrator of Ancillary Services for the St. Charles Parish School System.
There are 135 buses in the parish’s bus fleet and 23 spares, which also include air conditioning.
The buses will not only be able to cool down passengers, but also keep them warm, as heating is a standard feature with the units.
O’Malley said that the project was born with comfort merely a secondary concern — safety, he said, was the chief motivator.
“Safety was our biggest reason, for sure,” he said. “The buses are more comfortable now, but there are times those buses can get just too got. We wanted to eliminate that concern. Now, any new buses we order will have it included.”
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