OCEAN CITY — Ocean City is set to take ownership of two high-capacity articulating buses in time for the summer season, but they won’t likely be bearing the images of ghouls and zombies.
The Transportation Committee learned this week the two long-awaited, 60-foot articulating buses are scheduled to go into production by mid-February with a site visit planned as soon as March. Ocean City will take delivery of the two articulating buses, which feature a traditional main bus trailed by a connected second section, likely in May and the drivers will be trained and brought up to speed on the new vehicles in time for the summer season.
“We have every intention of having the drivers trained, the Ocean City logos installed and the new artic buses deployed by early June,” Acting Superintendent of Transportation Wayne Pryor told the Transportation Committee on Tuesday.
Pryor also told the committee the articulating buses will be eligible for wrapped advertising, just as many of the existing municipal buses are adorned with attractive ads for various businesses and already there has been some interest from one of the resort’s newest anticipated attractions.
Late last year, the Mayor and Council approved an extension of the amusement overlay district in the historic downtown area to enable the redevelopment of an old underage nightclub on Worcester Street as an upscale haunted house produced by Steelhead Productions.
Pryor told the committee on Tuesday Steelhead Productions had already expressed an interest in wrapping the new articulating buses in advertising for its future haunted house on Worcester Street. However, when Pryor viewed Steelhead’s proposed graphics, he decided a final decision should probably come from higher up the chain.
Steelhead makes no secret its popular existing haunted houses are intended for mature audiences. Steelhead’s own website suggests “this event may be too intense for young children and is not recommended for children under the age of 13,” so when Pryor saw the proposed advertising for the new articulating buses depicting ghouls and zombies, for example, he decided the committee should get a chance to weigh in.
“They’re proposing a full wrap on the articulating bus, but I want you to take a look at it before we sign off on anything,” he told the committee. “Some of it is a little graphic.”
The committee passed around a Steelhead brochure for its haunted house in Ocean City before deciding the graphics for the proposed bus wrap might not be appropriate.
“If there is an age limit to get into the place, that would probably preclude us from putting it on our buses,” Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan said. “Why don’t we go back to them and see if they can do something a little less frightening and we might be able to do it. I’d hate to do anything to discourage a new business, but this might be a little too much.”
Councilman and committee member Dennis Dare had his own assessment of the proposed haunted house bus wrapping.
“That’s R-rated,” he said. “We’re looking for PG.”
Meehan said the haunted house bus wrap as proposed could have the opposite effect.
“We certainly don’t want to scare any little kids, and we certainly don’t want to discourage anybody from riding the bus,” he said.