Bobcat S300 loaders are primary work equipment for Pacific Northwest municipality

The City of Tacoma Public Works departement uses five S300 skid-steer loaders and various attachments for street repairs and other tasks.

The City of Tacoma Public Works Department has been using Bobcat skid-steer loaders since the early 1990s, but the first machine the city purchased was idle more than it was busy. That is, until Joe Hagala, work management supervisor, and some other employees with the Streets and Grounds section started looking for ways to use the machine. Hagala led a quality team that looked at the department’s work process and determined that using skid-steer loaders was much more efficient than working by hand. Today, Streets and Grounds uses five Bobcat® S300 skid-steer loaders to maintain the city’s 700 miles of streets, alleys, parking lots and parks.

It’s important that Public Works crews and their equipment quickly respond to keep traffic moving smoothly. “The S300s are extremely mobile. It’s quick and easy to deploy these machines and take care of the problems around town,” says Hagala.

Street repairs are one of the primary tasks the S300s perform, a process that begins by using a Bobcat HB980 hydraulic breaker or planer attachment to demolish or mill the area to be repaired. Tacoma does have a large milling machine, but uses it only when full-lane milling is required. Many of the repair areas are potholes or cuts for utility repairs, and larger equipment is unnecessary. “If we don’t want to do a full-depth repair and just take the asphalt down a couple inches, it’s easier and faster to do it with an S300,” says Hagala.

One option the City of Tacoma invested in for the S300s is high-flow hydraulics. This feature enables use of high-flow planer attachments, which offer increased production over standard-flow models. Tacoma has also equipped the S300s with two-speed travel, which provides an additional range for higher speeds when traveling around a jobsite. “Many times, multiple repairs might be a block or two apart and the operator can put the loader into that other range and quickly get going to the next jobsite,” says Hagala.

Bobcat S300 skid-steer loaders also have a vertical lift path. Vertical lift path loaders provide more reach at full height than radial path models, and are helpful when loading large dump trucks. “We load into 10- and 12-yard dump trucks, and the vertical lift path makes it easier,” says Hagala.

Other attachments the Public Works Department has for the S300s include an angle broom, grapple and trencher. The angle broom follows behind the planer to clean up the street before new asphalt is installed and is also used to clean up the equipment yard. The grapple and trencher attachments are mainly used in grounds maintenance work to clear brush and install irrigation lines in parks.

Productivity is key for municipalities and contractors alike, and the versatility of the S300 has allowed City of Tacoma Public Works crews to accomplish more. “The S300s reduce labor and allow us to be more efficient and complete more square footage of repair work,” says Hagala. “That’s why these machines go out every day to a job instead of sitting in the yard like our first machine used to.”