As the Tahoma School District prepares to dedicate its new transportation facility this Saturday, bus drivers, administrative staff and mechanics are finally starting to settle in after moving in a month ago.

There are a number of improvements over the old bus barn site of 216th Avenue Southeast, big and small, the employees appreciate.

Bus driver Nancy Jones, who has worked for the district off and on since 1972, is particularly pleased about the paved parking lot — the old site was a gravel lot that was dusty in the warmer months and muddy in the winter.

“No potholes in the parking lot; we can walk and if we trip, it’s over our own feet,” Jones said. “No mud — it’s wonderful when you’re walking on it, it’s a huge difference. It’s nice to be in a new place.”

School buses made their home at the old Tahoma Elementary School site, which was also the site of Maple Valley High School until two years ago, and the district’s maintenance staff. It was a small site with a gravel parking lot.

For a veteran driver like Jones, this new facility is a long time coming and “it’s something I did not think would happen in my tenure.”

“We don’t need a castle,” she said. “It’s just nice to have this.”

Another nice touch is the 36 overhead lights in the parking lot, Jones said, so no longer will drivers have to hunt for their buses by flashlight during the dark winter months.

“How nice to be able to walk out and be able to find the bus,” she said.

With additional fencing and locks, too, Jones is happy to see the extra security so “the mechanics won’t lose their equipment.”

“Our mechanics, they really deserve this,” Jones said.

Transportation supervisor Doug Sander, who is in his fourth year with the district, praised his three mechanics, whom he said do great work whether it was in the old building or the new 9,250 square feet maintenance building.

“The mechanics do a spectacular job,” Sander said. “The working conditions they have now is like jumping out of the 19th century to the 21st century.”

For more than a decade district officials tried to find a spot for a new bus barn, but either the site wasn’t right or the money wasn’t there to pay for it. The district settled on a site off Petrovitsky Road Southeast near Shadow Lake Elementary School in 2006.

In the late 1980s money was set aside from a bond measure to build the bus barn but it was diverted to build another wing at Glacier Park Elementary which was growing rapidly at the time.

Since then district officials have been looking for a way to build a new transportation center.

In 1989, the district decided it needed to do something because the maintenance garage for the buses just doesn’t work. An old storage shed was converted to a maintenance building which didn’t have lifts for mechanics to work on the buses.

Now mechanics have two hoists to lift up the buses to do maintenance work, Sander said, with one of them being mobile.

The maintenance building also has four drive through bays, which increases safety when moving buses in and out of it, Sander said. It’s also handy for times like last week when a broken down bus had to be towed off site.

“It’s so much safer and so much better for everyone” to have the drive through bays, Sander said.

Like service departments at car dealerships or the local quick oil change shop, all of the fluids the mechanics need to work on the buses are available in hoses that hang from overhead, with the source of things like oil, anti-freeze and the like in a centralized pump room. This is a significant improvement and convenience for the mechanics, Sander explained, plus it’s more environmentally friendly.

There’s also a full automated bus wash, which is important if you ask Jones, because if the students see you have a clean bus then they’re more likely to keep the inside of it clean while they’re on it.

Sander said there are anywhere from 70 to 75 drivers on a given day with substitutes with 75 buses running most school days.

The site for the new transportation center covers 17 acres. There is paved parking for 80 buses, which is a few more than what the district uses now to transport 68 percent of its students.

In addition, there is more space for administrative staff, as well as meeting space and more room for parking for drivers.

As you walk through the doors of the 3,890 square foot administration building, immediately to the right is the dispatch center, which Sander described as “heaven by comparison” to the old site.

“Three people working a space half this size with no windows,” he said.

A bit further into the building on the left hand side is a large drivers lounge, complete with lunch tables, lockers and a kitchenette with a refrigerator. After a month it is starting to feel lived in as the drivers have begun to personalize their small lockers with photos and other mementos.

It also has a number of windows and vaulted ceilings and “there just a light, bright airy feel to it,” Sander said.

Bridge Anderson, who serves as the transportation routing coordinator among other roles, said she is happy to have the “openness in the office.”

“We can actually do our jobs better,” Anderson said. “It’s nice to have the flexibility to work in the different work stations. I was in a corner. I love the windows. That’s such a big thing; this has just been really nice.”

Anderson, who has worked for the district for 11 years, has heard the opinions from the drivers about the new facility.

“It’s more of a positive work environment,” she said. “I’ve heard such positive things from the drivers. It’s been nice coming in. It almost didn’t really feel real at first. What’s really been nice for the drivers are the lockers.”

Or the bathrooms, which have three stalls, unlike the one at the old building. Jones and Anderson said they would take over the mens bathroom when necessary.

Sander said another feature that has been popular with staff has been cubicles with a computer and phones where they can check e-mail and make phone calls to parents.

“This has been fairly heavily used,” he said. “People like that they can come back here and it’s quiet so they can get some work done.”

The little things and the big things are all appreciated, he said, and the improvement in morale has been significant.

That’s important when the work day for this group of district employees starts around 5:30 a.m. — earlier still in the winter when trying to determine the condition of the roads — and can end as late as midnight when drivers are transporting students to football games or soccer matches or other activities.

It’s a tough job coordinating the operation that Sander describes as “the dance of the yellow whales” and it’s helped to have the new facility.

“People just have a different sense of value … when they come in and out of here,” Sander said.