The End of an Era for Los Angeles Metro

[rickycourtney]

On August 30th LA Metro will retire the last high floor bus remaining in the fleet.

Here's the announcement:

http://thesource.metro.net/2014/08/26/end-of-an-era-metro-to-retire-its-last-high-floor-buses-on-august-30/

That leaves the agency with a 100% low floor and natural gas powered fleet (the last diesel powered bus Metro owned was retired in 2011).

For those of you who are interested in such things... the bus being retired is #5200, a New Flyer C40HF that was delivered in 2000. May she rust in peace. ;-)

 

[fairviewroad]

Interesting link, thanks.

One stat jumped out at me from the press release:

"There were more than 88,000 wheelchair boardings for the entire month."

I know LA is a huge metro area, but that's a huge number of wheelchair users. IME a high-floor lift takes

up to 5 minutes to use, whereas many wheelchair users can board a low-floor bus in less than a minute.

And of course every user also gets off the bus, so that's really 176,000 wheelchair "transactions" per

month.

The accumulated amount of time saved by low floor buses must be staggering.

 

[SubwayNut]

In NYC we still have plenty of high floor buses (Orien Vs, RTSs, and different High Floor New Flyer Articulated models). The worst part about the 40-foot (non-articulated buses) is that the wheelchair lift is at the rear door, not the front door. This means the time lost is the lift and the driver walking to and from the front seat to the back of the bus. The other day I was on a bus that really took forever because he was having trouble with the lift (he got it to work after a few minutes of trying), we saw another bus (on the same route) stop ahead of us and I wanted to get off and transfer (I have an unlimited ride card) but the driver had already closed the front door (I think done to avoid fare beaters while the rear door lift is under operation).

 

[trainman74]

That leaves the agency with a 100% low floor and natural gas powered fleet (the last diesel powered bus Metro owned was retired in 2011).

I like the "Nation's Largest Clean Air Fleet" lettering that's been on their buses since that retirement -- wonder if they'll be adding to that to brag about the low floors.

 

[rickycourtney]

That leaves the agency with a 100% low floor and natural gas powered fleet (the last diesel powered bus Metro owned was retired in 2011).

I like the "Nation's Largest Clean Air Fleet" lettering that's been on their buses since that retirement -- wonder if they'll be adding to that to brag about the low floors.

Believe it or not, Metro has actually had that "Nation's Largest Clean Air Fleet" lettering since 2003.
That's a cool thing to brag about in LA where air pollution has historically been a problem. On the other hand being all low floor is a bit more obscure to people who aren't transportation geeks.

Also considering New York is so late to the game, Metro might also have the nations largest low floor fleet.

 

[railiner]

The low floor design also benefits the elderly not needing the ramp, as they only need to climb the one step. And the area above the right wheelwell comes in handy as a "baggage rack", something the transit buses never had......

 

[jamesontheroad]

Could someone give me (a limey) a quick explanation of any federal (or state) legislation that might be driving the retirement of high floor buses?

Here in the UK, the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) effectively determined that from January 2015 all buses and coaches used for any kind of public transport or hire must be accessible (i.e low-floor with ramps) with dedicated space for wheelchair(s). If they don’t they will be deemed illegal to operate. Those up to 7.5 tonnes GVW have to be compliant or removed from service by the 31 December this year, over 7.5 tonnes GVW by 31 December 2015 and double deckers by 1 January 2017.

My limited experience (Montréal / Chicago / NYC) of urban buses in North America is that low floor vehicles are less capable in snowy cities. Is this still the case? Is running a mix of low-floor and high-floor buses (say alternate) on one route an acceptable compromise?

 

[trainman74]

Believe it or not, Metro has actually had that "Nation's Largest Clean Air Fleet" lettering since 2003.

That long? Ugh, I'm getting old and all the years are blending together. :wacko:

 

[SubwayNut]

Could someone give me (a limey) a quick explanation of any federal (or state) legislation that might be driving the retirement of high floor buses?

Here in the UK, the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) effectively determined that from January 2015 all buses and coaches used for any kind of public transport or hire must be accessible (i.e low-floor with ramps) with dedicated space for wheelchair(s). If they don’t they will be deemed illegal to operate. Those up to 7.5 tonnes GVW have to be compliant or removed from service by the 31 December this year, over 7.5 tonnes GVW by 31 December 2015 and double deckers by 1 January 2017.

My limited experience (Montréal / Chicago / NYC) of urban buses in North America is that low floor vehicles are less capable in snowy cities. Is this still the case? Is running a mix of low-floor and high-floor buses (say alternate) on one route an acceptable compromise?

NYC was really early to adopt wheelchair lifts. The entire fleet then all high floor became wheelchair-accessible in around 1994. Originally the lifts were all in rear doors. Wheelchair accessibility doesn't require low-floor buses, on high floor buses really slow lifts are used that basically come out from the bottom of the steps, extend out to the sidewalk and then the lift is gradually lifted up over the steps (I tried to find a Youtube video and failed). They work similar to lifts in motorcoaches (like on Greyhound's modern fleet) except at separate doors in the middle of the coach and the lift is stored in the luggage bay beneath coming out for use. See my previous post.

For a while the MTA started ordering low-floor 40 foot (normal length buses) but still ordered High-Floor Articulated Buses. It even launched its first attempted BRT route called Select Bus Service, it's POP you pay using a special MetroCard machine on the street and board at any door, using High-Floor Buses in 2009 on the Bx12. They finally got to their senses and ordered low-floor 3 door articulated buses finally starting in 2011 (now all SBS service should be low-floor buses, local routes also run artics that are both low and high floor buses).

 

[fairviewroad]

Here's a video of a high-floor wheelchair lift in action:

 

[SubwayNut]

I was specifically looking for one at the inefficient back door since we have buses like that in New York.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Actually NJT just ordered a bunch of high floor Hungarian busses from the creatively named North American Bus Industries (NABI), a direct spin off and subsidiary of the Hungarian Ikarus concern. They had to specially tool up for the order.

 

[rickycourtney]

Actually NJT just ordered a bunch of high floor Hungarian busses from the creatively named North American Bus Industries (NABI), a direct spin off and subsidiary of the Hungarian Ikarus concern. They had to specially tool up for the order.

Actually NABI is now owned by New Flyer (a Canadian company) so it's no longer a misnomer.

 

[CHamilton]

Seattle and San Francisco are cooperating on a large order of electric, low-floor buses that are being made in Winnipeg. We're supposed to see the first ones later this fall.

 

[rickycourtney]

High floor and low floor buses are equally accessible as far as the ADA is concerned. There is nothing stopping transit agencies here in the US from buying high floor buses... except common sense.

High floor buses take longer to load passengers (even those who don't use a wheelchair) so therefore buses spend more time stopped. There are very few advantages to high floor buses, the biggest being that they can seat more passengers.

King County Metro up here in Washington was actually the first to buy buses (high floor) with wheelchair lifts (they were very unreliable) but for some reason, like New York, they were very reluctant to buy low-floor buses.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

There is also disadvantages with low floor buses as well. The risk of bottoming out, fewer seats compared to the high floor bus, and maintenance, performance, and reliability issues. While down here is going low floor no matter what, various companies that shuttle passengers don't appear to be replacing their buses with low floors.

A few have acquired new low floor buses recently, but they're holding onto their older buses. Some have even acquired high floor buses that are between 14-20 years old (Orion Vs and RTS).

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

While low-floors have been replacing high-floor transits for years now, there has been a recent surge of using intercity buses for transit service, like this one: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mjoflakeland/14470681729/sizes/h/. Photo by MJofLakeland.

Personally, I believe these buses are too big and overbuilt for transit service, and I find it surprising that so many transit agencies continue to place orders for intercity buses.

Obviously, these OTR buses have must higher floors than a normal transit and require three to five steps for boarding, in addition to having a narrow "hatch" entrance, only 24 inches wide: https://www.flickr.com/photos/busdudedotcom/9279652099/sizes/l.

Obviously, the hatch entrance is very durable but due to frequently stopping at high idle, these coaches die must faster than in intercity service or maybe transit agencies forget to rebuild them.

Plus wasting most of the cargo hold. And not even mentioning those three axles or that huge powertrain. Riding Denver RTD recently, their massive intercity buses were not even filled to half capacity at rush hour.

 

[rickycourtney]

There is also disadvantages with low floor buses as well. The risk of bottoming out, fewer seats compared to the high floor bus, and maintenance, performance, and reliability issues. While down here is going low floor no matter what, various companies that shuttle passengers don't appear to be replacing their buses with low floors.

A few have acquired new low floor buses recently, but they're holding onto their older buses. Some have even acquired high floor buses that are between 14-20 years old (Orion Vs and RTS).

While it was certainly true that the early low floor buses had issues, most of those problems have been addressed as the technology matured.
Privately owned transportation companies have the freedom to do whatever they please but there are lots of rules and laws that regulate taxpayer-funded agencies. Chief among them is that the FTA won't allow agencies to keep more than 20-25% of buses in "reserve". If they break that rule, it becomes harder to get grants, so they don't have a lot of freedom to keep a lot of old buses. Also, most agencies aim to retire their buses after 12 years. After that

 

[rickycourtney]

Actually NJT just ordered a bunch of high floor Hungarian busses from the creatively named North American Bus Industries (NABI), a direct spin off and subsidiary of the Hungarian Ikarus concern. They had to specially tool up for the order.

The fact that New Jersey Transit has continued to order high floor buses for so long... boggles my mind.

NABI made a good product and the company was willing to entertain crazy requests from agencies. In addition to the high floor buses for NJT they also made a special 45-foot low floor bus built with composite materials for Los Angeles.

But now that they have been bought out, operations are winding down and I expect that New Flyer will be a lot less open to crazy requests. They seem to be content to give you any bus you want, as long as it's a variant of the one bus they make.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

There is also disadvantages with low floor buses as well. The risk of bottoming out, fewer seats compared to the high floor bus, and maintenance, performance, and reliability issues. While down here is going low floor no matter what, various companies that shuttle passengers don't appear to be replacing their buses with low floors.

A few have acquired new low floor buses recently, but they're holding onto their older buses. Some have even acquired high floor buses that are between 14-20 years old (Orion Vs and RTS).

While it was certainly true that the early low floor buses had issues, most of those problems have been addressed as the technology matured.

Privately owned transportation companies have the freedom to do whatever they please but there are lots of rules and laws that regulate taxpayer-funded agencies. Chief among them is that the FTA won't allow agencies to keep more than 20-25% of buses in "reserve". If they break that rule, it becomes harder to get grants, so they don't have a lot of freedom to keep a lot of old buses. Also, most agencies aim to retire their buses after 12 years. After that

Those issues I've listed still happens, even to this day. We have two buses low floor artics (which are due to retire very soon) we can't kneel, because of the way the front door swings out and opens. Part of the door could get caught up on something and that causes issues.

Private companies haven't invested in low floor buses, due to the fact the low floors can bottom out at many hotel entrances. As for keeping buses past 12 years, some are doing just that down here. We have 16 year old D60s and no replacements for them in sight. New York City has hundreds of buses that are past 12 years old.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

NABI busses are awful unreliable pieces of garbage, and I wish NJT would get their head on straight and start buying Mercedes-Benz Citaros.

 

[rickycourtney]

NABI busses are awful unreliable pieces of garbage, and I wish NJT would get their head on straight and start buying Mercedes-Benz Citaros.

Hahahaha. That's a great joke GML.
NJT would have to forgo all federal funding to buy a foreign built bus and import it to the US. Plus the Citaro would have to be reengineered to meet US standards.

Daimler already tried their hand at building buses for the US market. They failed. They purchased Orion in 2000 and sold it off to New Flyer in 2013.

The main problem was that while the Orion VII was a nice bus, it was expensive to produce. In order to compete with other bus builders Daimler had to have very narrow margins.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

The NABI 60 foot BRTs we have aren't doing so well, which is why Lynx is planning to retire them after only four years of service. Nova isn't bad, but are becoming Orion when it comes to delivering buses on time. We haven't ordered from New Flyer, yet.

 

[rickycourtney]

CJ- do you work for Lynx or another bus company?

I know that LA Metro owns a ton of NABI 60-BRT buses... some pushing 10 years old at this point. They're still going strong with no problems (other than the normal problems a 10 year old vehicle has).

 

[railiner]

I don't know if he works there, but LYNX is in Orlando.......