Title: Implementing a Winning Approach to Good Facility Design
Abstract: Millions of capital dollars are spent every year in transit agencies across North America to design and build new or refurbished transit operations facilities. In addition, most agencies spend thousands of dollars a year for facility operating expenses, including utilities, maintenance, and custodial services. In fact, facilities management is one of the larger expense items in any agency budget. So how can transit agencies, or any other owner for that matter, assure themselves that they are spending their capital dollars wisely for well-designed facilities? With more than 45 years of collective experience with designing transportation operations and maintenance facilities, the authors present important issues that must be considered to make the design and construction of any transportation operations and maintenance facility a success. Good design requires a thorough programming effort that defines owners’ goals and vision for the project, the functions of the facility, and the project budget. Most importantly, owners should recognize that well-designed facilities do not require bigger budgets. Well-designed buildings consider operations and maintenance costs over the life cycle of the building, appropriate materials, the effect of the aesthetics and functionality of the building on both the people who work within the facility as well as the surrounding neighborhoods, and flexibility and adaptability to future technologies and needs. Achieving good design requires a design firm that will dedicate staff experienced with transit operations and maintenance facilities, integration of the design process between all of the stakeholders involved, and an owner commitment to seeing the project through.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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