REPORT TO THE CITY COUNCIL
FROM: GREGORY A. BARFIELD, Assistant City Manager/Interim Director
Department of Transportation
BY: JOE VARGAS, Assistant Director
Department of Transportation
RODOLFO CASTRO, Fleet Manager
Department of Transportation/FAX Maintenance
SUBJECT
Title
Approve the cooperative purchase of fourteen (14) medium-accessible paratransit cutaway unleaded vehicles from Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) for the Department of Transportation/FAX, in the amount of $1,768,955.35
Body
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends Council approve the cooperative purchase of fourteen (14) medium-accessible paratransit cutaway unleaded vehicles from Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) for the Department of Transportation/FAX, with a purchase price of $1,632,630.68 plus taxes (8.25%) and fees totaling $1,768,955.35.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Department of Transportation/FAX seeks to purchase fourteen (14) 22’ All Star 12-passenger/two wheelchair E-450 paratransit buses to be used to provide Handy Ride service. The new vehicles will replace existing vehicles that have exceeded their useful life, which will help to improve quality and reliability of the paratransit service. The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) cooperative purchase contract with Creative Bus Sales, Inc. is available to the City of Fresno to purchase the necessary paratransit buses. FAX staff has conducted an evaluation of this cooperative purchase agreement and has determined that it meets both City and Federal purchasing requirements at a competitive cost for the City.
BACKGROUND
The FAX Handy Ride paratransit service provides over 134,000 annual trips to disabled and senior citizens within the Fresno area. Handy Ride currently operates forty-eight (48) vehicles during peak service hours. Funding for paratransit bus procurement becomes available periodically from various sources including federal allocations from the 5310 and 5339 programs, and California State Proposition 1B grants. FAX has budgeted to replace a total of seventeen (17) paratransit buses in FY23, all of which are past their useful lives (FTA guidelines are ten years or 250,000 miles) and are very costly to maintain. Three (3) buses are already on order under a prior contract, with the remaining fourteen (14) to be ordered from this purchase agreement. The vehicles to be replaced range from nine to fourteen years old with over 250,000 miles each. The replacement of buses as they reach the end of their useful life is critical to sustaining high performance, safety, reliability, cost effectiveness, and positive image of the FAX Handy Ride paratransit service. In previous years, funding constraints have required FAX to retain Handy Ride vehicles for longer than the ten-year life cycle target. FAX has worked to keep the existing buses running but has suffered increased maintenance costs.
To address the aging Fleet issue FAX developed a replacement plan to forecast the purchase of vehicles. 29 percent of the vehicles are over the FTA’s ten-year useful life guideline and more than 250,000 miles have been acquired on them. Almost 20 percent of vehicles are around 215,000 miles mark and will soon be reaching the FTA’s guidelines of replacing vehicles at 250,000 miles completed. The approval of this purchase agreement will reduce the average age and mileage of the Handy Ride vehicle fleet.
H-GAC is a “Government-to-Government” procurement service for States, State Agencies, Local Governments, Districts, Authorities and qualifying Not-for-Profit Corporations. H-GAC acts on behalf of members and solicit competitive offerings for the furnishing of products/and or services. The City of Fresno is a member of H-GAC and members using the program can issue purchase orders directly to contractors. The H-GAC solicited this contract for qualified vendors on January 01, 2021, and is valid till December 31, 2023. In total 14 vendors were awarded this contract with more than 300 buses, shuttles, transit trams and other specialty vehicles to choose from.
FAX obtained a copy of the contract and the vendor’s proposal and conducted an evaluation to determine if the contents of the cooperative purchase meet both City and Federal requirements. The cooperative purchase was competitively bid as described above. As a member, the City of Fresno is permitted to exercise options from the cooperative purchase. The cooperative purchase contains all the necessary federal conditions and certifications which were executed at the time of the original bid. A price analysis was performed, and the cost was determined to be fair and reasonable. The cooperative purchase agreement conforms to the requirements of FTA C 4220.1F, Chapter IV, 2(14)(i), that dictates that rolling stock agreements must not exceed the five-year term limit.
It is therefore the recommendation of FAX staff to approve the use of this cooperative purchase agreement to acquire fourteen (14) 22’ All Star 12-passenger/two wheelchair E-450 paratransit buses to be used to provide Handy Ride service.
ENVIRONMENTAL FINDINGS
This purchase agreement approval is not a “project” as defined by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), pursuant to CEQA Guidelines § 15378.
LOCAL PREFERENCE
Local preference was not implemented because this is a cooperative purchase agreement.
FISCAL IMPACT
This project was included in the FAX FY23 budget. The vehicle purchase will be funded with federal grant dollars, through a combination of programs 5310 (Enhanced Mobility of Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities) and 5339 (Bus and Bus Facilities). The local match for the federal funding will be drawn from FAX Enterprise funds. This purchase will not impact the General Fund.
Attachments:
1. H-GAC Contract
2. Price Analysis
3. Creative Bus Sales quote