Buses

During the fall of 2007, the MTA along with Design Line International rolled out a diesel turbine hybrid bus that run on 100 percent battery power. At the time, Transit was set to test the buses in Queens and Manhattan before deciding whether or not to order more.

Well, more are on the way. Transit announced on Thursday that eight low-floor, turbine-powered, hybrid-electric buses are bound for New York City as part of a pilot program. The initial test run, currently in progress, will unleash one of these state-of-the-art coaches along the M42 route, and if successful, the MTA could opt to bring this clean green vehicles to bus routes across the city. It is, in the words of Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges, “yet another example of the agency’s ongoing effort to examine new technology that will help us reduce emissions and provide more economical and environmentally friendly service.”

Fleuranges spoke at lenght about the buses on one of Transit’s TransitTrax podcasts. (Transcript here; MP3 file here) Not only are the buses environmentally-friendly, but they are economically-friendly and audio-friendly as well. In fact, it will be the only bus in Transit’s feelt to meet the EPA’s 2010 emissions standards without the need for exhaust treatment. “The bus is revolutionary,” Joseph J. Smith, a senior vice president at the Department of Buses, said. “It has no starter, no transmission, no water pump and no engine radiator, which should help us significantly reduce our maintenance costs.”

Tim Duncan, the product manager at Design Line, spoke at length about the technology: ” The whole bus is designed so that the batteries run the electric motors and its two electric motors that drive the propulsion system to move the bus along the ground and then, as the batteries get flat, the turbine generator starts up and will charge the batteries. And when the batteries get fully charged it will shut down and the vehicle will run on zero emissions; it’ll run for up to two hours without any emissions, and then when the batteries get low again, then the turbine kicks in.”

The turbine engine also creates far less noise than the city’s current fleet of buses. This will be welcome news to anyone who lives near or above a bus stop. The MTA’s buses are far from quiet.

For now, these buses are udergoing structural testing as part of the New Bus Qualification program. While the Oct. 2007 test runs were simply introductory efforts, this fleet of eight was built to NYC Transit specifications. Also under review are structural aspects of the buses. These buses feature a curved front window designed to give the vehicle a “happy” look and are sleeker than the current buses. As for seating, these vehicles will fit either 35 or 37 with room for 30 standees. The current Orion VII Low Floor buses, by comparison, can seat up to 44, depending upon the configuration, and the city’s articulated buses can seat around 60 passengers.

After 90 days of review, Transit will give its recommendations to Design Line and decide whether to follow through on a purchase order. If the tests are positive, the base order will be for 30 with an option to purchase 60 more buses. In the end, it’s hard not to be excited about these buses. They’re sleek, green, quiet and cheap to maintain. That’s forward thinking at the MTA.

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Earlier today, a Pete Donohue article in the Daily News probably raised a few eyebrows. Donohue notes that the MTA is eliminating student discounts on some express bus routes.

Hundreds of city students from the outer boroughs will have to choose between paying more to commute to school in Manhattan this fall or using a longer route. As part of this summer’s fare hikes, the MTA quietly cancelled the discount on the express buses that gave students half off…The student fare will rise to $5.50 per trip from $2.50.

“It’s pretty upsetting,” said Daniel Masterson, 15, who gets in a morning nap on his hour and 15-minute commute from City Island in the Bronx to Beacon High School in Manhattan. “To me it’s going be a really big inconvenience.”

For the more than 800 kids who took advantage of the express bus discount on the average school day from September to May, the increased fare will add up. Jeffrey Levine, 48, a social worker whose two daughters will commute this fall from Throgs Neck to the Saint Vincent Ferrer school, will endure a $120 weekly increase. “It’s going to be hard on my family affording full fare,” Levine said.

You get the point. According to MTA officials, this hike will impact just 36 percent of Outer Borough express bus routes and is designed to align fares on express buses across the city. “This was an anomaly, and it’s being brought into consistency,” MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said to Donohue.

Politicians, meanwhile, are going through the motions. “We have many students in the outer boroughs who do not live near trains, and they depend on express buses to go to school,” Councilman James Vacca from the Bronx said. “They’re not a luxury they’ve become a necessity. … There is still time for the MTA to reconsider.”

But it’s not that simple. While this is just conjecture on my part, this move by the MTA is part of a long-term battle the agency has fought against the city for adequate student compensation. As I reported back in August 2007, the city does not pay enough for Student MetroCards. According to a two-year-old comptroller’s report, the MTA was routinely providing over $70 million a year in free commutes for students because the city doesn’t pony up the money.

Considering the state of its economy, the MTA should be bringing all express bus fares in line across the service area. If the city wants its students to enjoy subsidized commutes, then the city should pay for those commutes. Facing a financial crunch, the MTA should not be expected to offer free rides to students just because.

Seven months ago, bus driver Edwin Thomas was murdered when he refused to give a free transfer to someone who had paid his fare. At the time, the MTA promised increased safety measures for very vulnerable bus drivers. Yet, as Heather Haddon detailed in amNew York earlier this week, those measures have yet to arrive.

Writes Haddon:

Nearly 180 bus drivers were injured between July 2008 and June 2009, almost double the previous year, according to the union’s data. But figuring out a fix hasn’t proved so easy, leaving drivers at risk and causing delays for passengers when an incident forces a bus out of service.

NYC Transit experimented with partitions on buses running in Brooklyn earlier this year, but drivers said they caused glare from sun reflecting into the mirrors, Watt said.

Transit hopes to move ahead with the partitions but has not determined a final design, said spokesman Charles Seaton. Officials did not provide a timetable.

Bus systems in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C. have already installed plastic partitions to protect drivers where they sit and have received mixed reviews. Los Angeles bus officials said drivers found the partitions confining and hot. “We should expect some level of protection,” said Israel Rivera, a Bronx bus driver and union activist. “We come to work and wait to be assaulted again.”

And so the drivers wait. They wait for something bad to happen, and they wait for the proper protective measures. What will come first?

A model of the three-door articulated buses soon to arrive on New York City streets. (Click to enlarge)

Throughout debate over the MTA rescue plan, upstate Senators refused to budge on their anti-payroll tax stance. These state representatives did not want to raise taxes for what seemed to be a very New York City-centric purpose. Transit proponents argued that the entire state would benefit from a healthy MTA, and today’s news out of Plattsburgh, NY, a small city on Lake Champlain approximately 30 minutes from Canada, shows why.

New York City Transit has just put in an order with Nova Bus for 90 articulated buses featuring a low-floor system and three doors. Nova Bus, a Quebec-based subsidiary of Volvo, has recently opened a plant in Plattsburgh, and that plant will produce these 90 buses.

These new buses promise to be state-of-the-art vehicles. They are set to be 62 feet long and will featuring motion-controlled rear doors. According to Mobilizing the Region, this order for more buses comes after a successful trial in the Bronx, and the 90 new vehicles will deployed along the city’s latest bus-rapid transit routes. Delivery is set to begin during the first half of 2010.

As reports from up north show, the MTA is more than just the economic driver behind New York City’s success. Nova will employ 172 New Yorkers in Plattsburgh, and by keeping this equipment order in state, the MTA is spreading it tentacles well beyond its service area.

My gym inhabits an old bank at the corner of 5th Ave. and Union St. in Park Slope. The building has a pair of mezzanines on either end, and the treadmills are lined up facing out the windows on the second floor overlooking the avenue. With a clear view of the B63 bus shelter on the Bay Ridge side of the street, while running, I watch people wait for the bus.

A few Fridays ago, an interesting story unfolded, and while most people wouldn’t think much of it, I thought the tale is a clear indication why New York City’s transit technology is out of date and in need of an upgrade. This sordid story starts at six in the evening. I walked to the gym and noted a larger-than-usual crowd of people at the bus stop. After stretching, I hopped onto the treadmill and noted that the throngs of people were still there.

As the minutes and miles ticked by, I was struck by the scene at the bus stop. Thirteen minutes into my run, no bus had shown up. I could see frustration on the faces of those waiting for the B63. Some stood with their grocery bags staring futilely up the avenue. Others were attempting to keep their children from dashing into the street.

Nine minutes later, as I cleared the 2.5-mile mark, people started to leave. An older woman with what I guessed to be a grandson hailed a cab to points south. The younger child was growing far too impatient to wait for the bus. Four minutes later, a mother and her son headed west on Union St., bound for the R stop on Fourth Ave.

By the thirty-minute mark, as I passed 3.5 miles, nearly everyone else had left. After a series of frantic phone calls accompanied with the exasperated arm motions of someone stymied on the way home, a twenty-something woman with red hair found a cab. Others started walking along Fifth Ave. They would try to get closer to home while waiting for the bus to catch up.

By the time I hit five miles at around 41 minutes, nearly all of the original commuters had found other means of transit. New bus riders had shown up to wait. Still, though, one woman sat there. She had been sitting there when I had arrived at the gym, and she was still there afterward. I had run the equivalent of the distance from the gym to 95th St. in Bay Ridge, and still one woman waited for the bus.

On my way home, I detoured by the bus station and asked her how long she had planned to wait. “A few more minutes,” she said with a laugh. For someone waiting over 50 minutes for the bus, she had a sense of humor about her. “I thought maybe 200 people are dead somewhere,” she said. She had a book, though, and didn’t mind waiting.

As I walked back home, I glanced up Fifth Ave. and saw not one but two southbound buses heading my way. The wait would be over, and no one would ever know why the B63 didn’t show up for nearly an hour at rush hour on a Friday. With no digitized arrival board and centralized system for announcements, bus riders in the city are left with that tried, true and not too useful technique of waiting and peering. One day, we’ll catch up.