MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The WVU people-mover, the PRT, has received congressionally directed spending of more than $6 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation for maintenance.
WVU Director of Transportation Jeremy Evans said the new funding, announced by West Virginia U.S. Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito, will be used to finance repair work at PRT stations on the downtown campus and at the Engineering Sciences Building.
“We’ve been using that funding to do some of this work but getting this other money from the federal government will allow us to greatly increase the speed at which we can get this work done,” Evans said.
With no major improvements in the last 50 years, elevators will be replaced, worn facia panels on the PRT will be replaced, and the concrete work in the stations will be completely redone.
“The concrete being 50 years old is starting to show its age; steps need to be replaced, and concrete concourses need to be torn up and rep-oured,” Evans said. “We’re going to put new coatings on the concrete to make it last longer and look more aesthetically pleasing.”
The work will be scheduled between May and August, and Evans said they’ll likely break the work into several small projects each summer.
“We’re not going to bid it all as one big project,” Evans said. “It will be small individual projects that we do each summer, so the things that we target next summer will probably be the Request for Proposal that will go out shortly after December, most likely.”
Unlike the PRT infrastructure, Evans said the cars are on a regular maintenance schedule. Those repairs include anything from a minor tweak, new tires, or a complete teardown and rebuild.
“They come for some sort of service every 3,000 miles, whether that’s to come in and check the tires or a complete teardown,” Evans said. “Every 3,000 miles, a PRT vehicle is getting something.”
The PRT handles about 13,000 rides each day when classes are in session and maintains a near-perfect reliability rate, Evans said.
“Which means every time a PRT is scheduled to be there, 98.7 percent of the time it’s there,” Evans said. “So, this work will allow us to continue to make sure the PRT remains a good transportation option, not just for the students but also for the public.”