BOSTON — A Boston-based tour bus company that’s been mostly sitting idle during the pandemic is hoping to repurpose its resources for the vaccination rollout.
Yankee Line is in talks with city, state and federal officials to reconfigure its buses into mobile vaccination clinics.
Manager Michael Costa told Boston 25 News the buses can easily be transformed by removing about half of the 50 seats.
Some of the company’s fleet has already been transformed to make room for six socially-distanced mobile vaccination stations on board.
“These buses have a format that can be adjusted to this pretty quickly,” said Costa. “This is a solution for us to be able to answer this need at this time.”
Yankee Line, headquartered in South Boston, believes the plan could be expanded outside of its 70 buses on site.
Costa said the company has contacted the American Bus Association about reconfiguring buses across the country.
“We’ve identified 1500 buses from Massachusetts to Hawaii that have the same floor plan and the same setup,” said Costa. “This is something that can provide more accessibility to rural areas as well as urban areas that don’t have great transit connections.”
According to Costa, the buses are handicapped-accessible and have filtration and airflow similar to an airplane.
He said the buses could travel anywhere they’re needed. That includes workplaces so employees wouldn’t have to take time off to get a vaccine.
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