BEAT FEET IN THE IRAQI HEAT? NOT TROOPS AT LOGISTICAL SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA
V Corps Release
Release Date: 9/03/2003
By Pvt. 2 Christopher Fincham 3rd Corps Support Command Public Affairs Office
LOGISTICAL SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA, Iraq -- American public transportation has a long history, from the Boston ferries of the early 1600s to ox carts of New York in the mid-1700s, right up to today's rapid subways and complex bus systems. Even here, half a world away, Americans are now finding public transportation with the advent of a bus system.
The population of Logistical Support Area Anaconda and Sustainer Army Airfield is at more than 16,000 and rising, creating heavy congestion for these small installations. Their roads are clogged up daily with vehicles of every description, from High Mobility Multipurpose Vehicles and 5-ton trucks, to Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles and Abrams tanks, to civilian dump trucks and tractor-trailers.
To lighten some of the traffic load and damage to the roads, the installation headquarters here ordered buses and established an installation Transportation Motor Pool, tasking its staff to set up and operate a bus system.
"The base headquarters wanted to alleviate a lot of the traffic and congestion on the roads," explained Chief Warrant Officer 2 Brian Dutton, TMP service manager.
A primary goal was to cut down on the tracked vehicle traffic and give soldiers another means of getting to places like dining post exchange and Morale, Welfare and Recreation facilities, added Lt. Col. Michael Berg, TMP director.
"The mayor's cell here had a vision of a bus system, but no real plan -- and that's where we came in," said Dutton.
Berg and Dutton, along with soldiers from the U.S. Army Reserve's 19th Area Support Group from Arden Hills, Minn., received the mission in July and were quick to answer the task. They went about the process of receiving the buses already ordered, placing orders for more and drawing up tentative routes.
"When we got here and received the mission, 10 buses were already here, and we went ahead and ordered six more," said Berg. Then we drew up bus routes, ran them a couple times to see what worked and what needed to be changed, put drivers in place and -- here we are. We had the first route running within the first week."
From that first week the color-coded routes have progressively become more plentiful. Occasionally they've adapted to become more efficient and provide maximum coverage, according to Dutton and Berg.
"Currently we have four routes - red, green, orange and blue - running around the installation, covering about 22 kilometers total with two buses per route, which will be modified as needed," explained Dutton.
As the routes became more regular and the buses more abundant, so did the number of commuters.
"Once we started keeping track of how many people were riding, we found that we were averaging about 200 to 300 riders a day," said Dutton.
"And now we support over 1,500 passengers a day, with eight buses running from (7 a.m. to 9 p.m.)," Berg said. And we've gotten a lot of great feedback."
"Yeah," agreed Dutton. "They're very happy not to have to walk all the way across the post just to go to chow or the PX."
"Now they get a quick ride in an air-conditioned bus," added Berg. You can't beat that."
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