LOCKPORT, N.Y. — School bus service provider Ridge Road Express Inc. celebrated its 80th anniversary last month with the opening of its new 4,800-sq. ft. dispatch and classroom facility.

The new facility houses Ridge Road’s transportation supervisors for Lockport City School District and Starpoint Central School District in Lockport, N.Y., their assistants and the field trip, athletic and charter transportation coordinator.

The building also includes a 100-person classroom, which will allow the company to hold Lockport and Starpoint school bus driver meetings in-house. Other improvements to the four-acre site include a well-lit, newly paved 130-car employee parking lot.

“This new office setting is more conducive to the fast pace of school bus dispatch,” Ridge Road Express President R. Thomas Weeks said. “Now, coordinating the 96 buses, 72 vans and nearly 200 employees for these two districts will be more streamlined and efficient than ever before.”

Ridge Road Express Inc. was founded in 1928 and purchased by Ralph A. Weeks, R. Thomas Weeks’ father, in 1929. It originated as a two-bus operation and currently operates 160 large school buses and 140 vans that serve the Starpoint, Lockport, Barker, Newfane and Royalton Hartland school districts, among others.