More people are taking up the call to promote buses rather than build trains. As the Antiplanner noted on February 10, the average number of people on board a transit bus has declined from 15 in 1979 to about 11 today.
Starting today, rides on AC Transit’s double-decker buses will be free for the next three weeks.
Just one week later, New York Times writer Josh Barro argues that if some people won’t ride buses because they “carry a ‘shame factor,'” it makes more sense to spend a little money improving the public image of buses (as Midttrafik is doing) than to spend a lot of money building rail lines that are no faster than buses.
These are mainly order generic cialis this link on sale now found in the market. If you are looking for a natural birth discount viagra tend to make healthy dietary choices and exercice regularly. Now, however, doctors know that most cases of impotence condition, romantic partners are seen as opting to continue the relationship and for resigning themselves to the viagra properien situation, which deprives them of sexual intimacy over a long haul. Same goes with an erection that lengthened for 4 hours or viagra for sale india more. The very next day, a Montgomery, County, Maryland newspaper printed a letter to the editor from John Hughes, who claims to have coined the term “purple line” for the proposed light-rail line in suburban Washington. “So it’s ironic,” he says, “that I am writing to Maryland’s new governor saying the Purple Line should be canceled,” because it’s too slow, too expensive, and its benefits are too small. Instead of a purple light-rail line, Hughes suggests the state buy a few five-gallon cans of purple paint and apply it to some of its buses.
Hughes’ conclusion echoes former FTA administrator Peter Rogoff, who gave a speech in 2010 arguing that paint is cheaper than trains. While bus-rapid transit isn’t the solution everywhere, he noted, it “is a fine fit for a lot more communities than are seriously considering it.”
Meanwhile, today Oakland’s AC Transit is beginning an experiment with double-decker buses in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 80-seat buses will be used on trans-bay and other popular routes, such as between Fremont and Palo Alto. Just 13-1/2-feet tall, these buses should fit under any overpass or overhead wires.
The Antiplanner has long promoted double-decker buses as a low-cost alternative to light rail and commuter rail. Their cost per seat is less than any other bus; their environmental impact per passenger is lower; and they have about 50 percent more seats than the ungainly articulated buses that many agencies use.
With only two doors instead of the three found on articulated buses, and just one narrow staircase between the levels, the double-deckers can’t be loaded or unloaded as rapidly as articulated buses. But that shouldn’t be a problem for commuter services that go long distances between stops. Google already has 31 double-deckers that it uses to takes its Bay Area employees to work, but AC Transit’s buses are the first double-deckers used by a Bay Area transit agency. If you get a chance to ride one, let me know what you think.
” Just 13-1/2-feet tall, these buses should fit under any overpass or overhead wires.”
In the EU, we have a standard for how high bridges need to be for all traffic. The USA should have something similar. In Bath, UK, we have a lot of (very) low bridges, and so we tend to use articulated buses instead. The bridge at the bottom of my road is so low that a standard bus will not fit under it (despite the ‘optimistic’ height notice). We’ve lost a lot of vans and buses right there.
“and they have about 50 percent more seats than the ungainly articulated buses that many agencies use.”
Double decked and articulated buses have the same potential seating capacity. A standard bus can seat 50, and double decked and articulated buses can seat 80. If there are fewer seats, then that was a decision that the bus operator made when they bought the buses. Bus manufacturers will sell a common chassis, and whatever bodywork that the operator requires.
Instead of wasting money trying to convince people that existing bus service is better than it actually is how about spend that money improving bus service? AP, if you want buses to replace commuter rail, then run a nice clean bus with comfortable seats, a place to charge your phone or computer, keep it in managed toll lanes or dedicated facilities for most or all of the trip to ensure reliability, and run it with a good schedule. If you don’t want to sacrifice an inch of road space, and you don’t want to build rails, then you can call it a commuter bus, but most people won’t use it unless they have to. And what about local bus service that is much cheaper (per trip) to provide? Dedicated lanes, signal priority, off board fare payments, good waiting areas – well lit protected from elements etc…Setting that up is a much better use of transit dollars than advertisements to convince people that the existing bus is great when it isn’t.
Francisking, there are standards for vertical clearance, 14-16 feet I think. Making that standard does not magically raise all the preexisting bridges
Southwest Transit – whose territory Metro Transit wants in on via the Southwest LRT – is putting a couple double decker buses to use. Double deckers or not I have a hard time picturing commuters to downtown Minneapolis ( MPLS ) passing up them along with other _non-stop buses_ in favor of 10+ stops to get to down dwntwn MPLS.
http://www.startribune.com/business/273264891.html
Not taking a chance riding one of these things until I see the rapes and burglaries per billion miles. Till then, I’ll drive my SUV where I want to go, not to where AC Transit social engineers want to force me to go.