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Montauk Bus Company Gets Permission To Use Route 27 Lots As Staging Area, Parking Lot

John Mensch, owner of Montauk Transit Service, testifies before the zoning board on Jan. 5.


The Long Island-based company that transports the school district’s children received approval Jan. 5 to store its buses on two Route 27 lots.

Montauk Transit Service – which became the school district’s largest bus contractor just about three years ago when the previous contractor suddenly closed up shop – will be able to base at least 130 buses on the lots at 925 and 945 Route 27, following a unanimous vote by the Zoning Board of Adjustment.

The company needed site plan approval and a use variance from the board.

The company a year ago had received temporary permission to use the site.

John Mensch, the company president, told the board that the township school district is his biggest customer. He said he also has a staging site for his buses on Jersey Avenue in New Brunswick.

Mensch said the proposed site has enough room to allow him to increase his fleet by at least 50 buses, and could hold a total of 198 buses. He said he needed the extra space in case the district’s enrollment expanded and more routes were created.

The buses are used for the district 180 days a year, Mensch said.

“In the summer, we rent out the buses to camps, where they take the buses and park them on their sites,” he said.

He said management typically shows up at about 5 a.m., while drivers start showing up between 5:30 and 6 a.m. The last elementary school bus leaves the yard at 7 a.m.

Most of the smaller buses would leave the yard in the morning, and mot return until after children had been taken home, Mensch said. He said drivers take them to their regular day jobs, or they take them home until the afternoon runs.

The larger buses, he said, are returned to the site.

The company’s traffic engineer, Jay Trautman, told the board that the buses would not have a major impact on traffic on Route 27.

Trautman said the property’s former use – the home of the former Phillips Concrete company – had more of an impact on traffic than the bus company would.

 

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