THE PURCHASING DIVISION AND THE TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT/TRANSIT DIVISION RECOMMEND APPROVAL OF THE ABOVE MOTION.
This item supports the Board's Vision and Value for "Cooperatively delivering an efficient and accessible regional inter-modal transportation network." Seek local, state, federal funding and public support for transportation projects that connect to existing transportation corridors, balancing ridership with community redevelopment demands.
The Office of Economic and Small Business Development did not assign Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) participation goals for this procurement. Consistent with the United States Department of Transportation (FDOT), the purchase of buses with federal funding are exempt from DBE goal assignment. Broward County requires that each transit manufacturer, as a condition of being authorized to bid or propose on Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) assisted transit vehicle procurements, certify that it has complied with the requirements of title 49 CFR 26.49 (Exhibit 3).
The purpose of this contract is to provide for the purchase of 27 35-foot and 120 40-foot, low floor transit buses for the County’s Transit Division (BCT). Obtaining the necessary vehicles will improve the capacity of the transit system. BCT is seeking to piggy-back on the Commonwealth of Virginia Consortium Contract No. E194-75548 MA2274, (Exhibits 1, 2 and 5). for the purchase of these buses though the Commonwealth of Virginia Consortium Contract.
The recently passed Broward County Transportation Surtax Plan includes provisions for the immediate expansion of BCT bus services to enhance the mobility of the citizens of Broward County by increasing the availability of public transit. In order to meet the requirements of the Surtax Plan in a timely manner, BCT needs to expand its existing fleet by 80 buses by 2020. Additionally, BCT also has FTA requirements to ensure that transit bus fleets remain in a “state of good repair” by replacing them when their useful life is exceeded. The FTA established life expectancy for a transit bus is 12 years or 500,000 miles. Currently, the BCT fleet has 137 vehicles that have exceeded these thresholds and are eligible for replacement. To begin to address this backlog, a total of 67 replacement buses are included in this purchase.
Given the long lead times for bus production, especially for an order of this size, BCT needs to facilitate the acquisition of these 80 new buses to meet the service demands for system expansion and the regular replacement of older buses. This piggyback contract provides BCT with the mechanism to accelerate the delivery of these buses to achieve our important operational, priorities in a timely manner. Funding for this bus purchase contract will be made available from existing federal formula FTA grants and Transportation Surtax funds once approved by the Transportation Oversight Committee.
This contract was competitively solicited through the Commonwealth of Virginia and meets the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) requirements for compliance. Additionally, it meets the Broward County fixed-route transit fleet requirements and complies with the FTA piggy-back requirements. Commonwealth of Virginia has authorized Broward County to utilize its contract for its needs by execution of Assignment Agreements, which allows the vendor to provide the necessary vehicles to the County (Exhibit 5). In order to expedite the procurement of the transit buses and obtain delivery in an efficient manner, whereby timeliness is a major factor, the Transit Division is requesting approval to utilize these contracts. |