Officials of the Cache Valley Transit District have announced that a groundbreaking ceremony for the district’s long-awaited maintenance facility is slated for 11 a.m. on Monday, Mar. 6. That facility will be constructed at 3100 North, 380 West, close to the Logan-Cache Airport.
LOGAN – A groundbreaking ceremony for the Cache Valley Transit District’s long-awaited maintenance facility has been slated for 11 a.m. on Monday, Mar. 6.
That news was delivered to members of the Logan Municipal Council at their regular meeting on Feb. 7.
The new maintenance facility – which will double as storage space for CVTD busses in bad weather — will be constructed in North Logan, at approximately 3100 North and 380 West.
Todd Beutler, the CEO and general manager of CVTD, expects that the new facility will be a welcome addition to the transit systems facilities.
“Cold weather,” he said, “like what we’ve experienced recently, and diesel engines are not a good combination.”
For the past decade, Beutler explained, the CVTD has been planning to follow the example of Logan City, Cache County and other Utah transit agencies to eventually house its vehicles indoors, which is expected to result in reduced maintenance costs.
In 2010, the transit district acquired land near the Logan-Cache Airport for its future maintenance facility.
Since then, CVTD has been gathering funds from grants from the Federal Transit Administration and other sources to being construction. That process was also helped by a grant from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act in 2021.
Beutler has said that construction of the maintenance facility will probably take two years.
The CVTD is a free public bus system that is funded by local sales taxes. The system serves Logan and other nearby cities with routes running as far north as Preston, Idaho and south to Hyrum.
CVTD managers say that the free system allows Valley residents to access employment, training, shopping and medical services while supporting the economies of local communities.
CVTD buses and recently added on-call micro-transit vans serve nearly 4,000 Cache Valley residents on a daily basis.
The CVDT is one of the few free transit systems in the state and nation.
Transit officials say that their service is needed by Cache Valley residents because 22.5 percent live below the federal poverty level and more than 25 percent have access to one or less cars in their household.
Recent surveys indicate that 7.7 percent of area residents are seniors who rely on public transit to keep active or run errands, while another nearly 10 percent are disabled person for whom buses are the only option for transit.
CVTD officials add that 72 percent of valley residents believe free public transportation is a lifeline for neighbors who are seniors or have disabilities and more than 50 percent say they know someone who rides CVTD buses regularly.
Beutler predicted that the need for area public transportation will increase in coming years with Cache Valley’s expected growth by 2030.