Ocean City transportation officials are ready to tackle what could be the busiest two weekends of the year for the resort’s beach buses with extra drivers and scheduled shift work.
During the planned Oceans Calling Festival set Sept. 27-29, and Country Calling Festival Oct. 4 and 5, the town is likely to see tens of thousands of people traveling in and out of the inlet area downtown. And while it could be a traffic nightmare, as the first night of last year’s Oceans Calling event showed, officials are optimistic about their plans this year.
“We focused this year on not only all day deployments but we’ve recruited heavily amongst … recent staff that is no longer employed with us to encourage them to come back and work just those five event days,” Transit Manager Rob Shearman told members of the Transportation Committee at a meeting Tuesday.
Transportation Operations Manager George Peake said staff reached out to 21 extra drivers who are certified to operate buses to take shifts for the event days. Of those, they hired 11, who Peake said are currently in various stages of refresher trainings.
In total, with the new drivers and existing ones, Peake said the city will have 100 deployments for Oceans Calling, which he said he is happy about. Then for Country Calling, he has scheduled another 69 deployments.
“Between the 100 for Oceans Calling, the 69 for Country Calling, plus the additional 49 of these 11 extra CDL drivers, I think we’re looking real good on deployments, “ Peake said. “I feel real good about it.”
Obviously vernon didn’t have a handle on things last year, but he was smooth enough to pawn it off to someone else to take the blame.
Anything to keep the Tourons pouring down.
Where oh where are people to park???
You feel good before either event. Geez still so tiny time. Brag afterwards. What if those extra drivers and current drives DONT SHOW UP? I mean he’ll, drivers have been screaming for resourcing assistance for years yet…..
Always prepare for the worse (like you should have had a special event caution this past 4 days for the bikers) and hope for the best. Next year’s bike weekend, special event. Deter the knuckleheads.