King County Metro 331 // Photo by AtomicTaco
One of the details I noticed in King County’s proposed Capital Improvement Program budget was a reduction in the number of 30′ diesel buses planned for purchase in 2014. Metro’s 95 existing 30′ Gillig Phantoms, purchased in 1999, will reach the end of their service life in that year, and the CIP funds only 60 buses to replace them; 15 additional 40′ hybrid coaches will be purchased instead. The CIP states (PDF page 255) that “A segment of service requires a 30-ft bus to navigate certain routes”, then later that “Fewer [30' buses are required] because Metro plans to reduce service on low productivity routes that require smaller vehicles”.
I contacted Metro spokespeople Rochelle Ogershock and Linda Thielke to get more details. It turned out that the scope of these changes are larger than evident from the terse summary in the budget. Metro is seeking to replace three models of “smaller bus” — 35′ coaches, 30′ coaches and vans — with one “small bus” that meets the requirements of all situations where one of those models is used now.
This review is very open: almost nothing about this new model has been decided, including overall length, hybrid or not, and whether it will be a low-floor transit bus or some other body type. Moreover, it takes place in the context of “right-sizing” — i.e. contracting out to DART — bus service on some of the thinly-used routes in rural and exurban King County where 30′ coaches are used now.
As I know my readers are an inquisitive bunch, I knew I’d either have to provide a list of route segments where 30′ coaches are required, or field lots of comments speculating where those places might be. Linda T. helpfully obtained for me a list of problematic locations for the current route network:
[UPDATE: Image fixed.]
Route Segments where "small bus" is required
This list excludes Vashon Island (uniquely constrained by ferry loading to 35′ coaches) and DART routes. It is only valid for the current service change and current equipment, and the presence of a route segment on the list does not mean that 40′ coaches have never been used there before or might not be used again in the future.
Regular readers will know that I’m very much a fan of ridership- and efficiency-oriented restructures, and it seems to me that if a bus route can’t get a decent load on a 40′ coach for a majority of its span of service, it probably shouldn’t be there, and we should consider alternatives such as DART, paratransit and vanpools. Reducing the number of small buses to the minimum required by physical constraints is another step in the right direction.
What would you consider a decent load for a 40ft coach of what capasity? Theres a strong argument to be made to standardsize as much as possible on 40ft coaches. You need less spares, keep parts inventorys standardized, more operational flexibility, and really the cost of operating and purchasing a 30ft and a 40ft coach are virtually the same. One of metro’s big problems is that they try and be too much. Both an urban and suburban operator, and i have to wonder even with the additional overhead that would be requred if it wouldent be better to break them up into two agencies one serving the urban parts of seattle to the north and one for the rest of the county.
Thanks for this posting, Bruce. Having driven vans in passenger service, though never for anything Metro-connected, I think STB and the whole passenger public need to get onto their county council members and insist from the get-go that whatever vehicle size, quality is non-negotiable.
Discussion needs to lead off with why recent small-vehicle purchase ended up with exhaust in the passenger compartment,and a long list of other intolerable defects. And how to prevent similar grief in future.
I wonder if any manufacturer in North America actually knows or cares how to produce a small passenger bus. What we seem to get are freight delivery vans with cabins, machines nowhere near well-enough built to stand up to passenger service.
Legally and morally, a truck ride is not equal service with a bus ride.
Mark Dublin
I dunno if I agree with that. These workhorse vans are absolute crap, everyone agrees on that (Except the manufacturer, who continues to insist no other customer has had a single complaint about them), but our Champion vans have been absolutely solid. At this rate we’ll still be using some of the 1996 batch in 2020. The internal layout is goofy, and the lifts are crap, but that’s mostly an artifact of the era in which they were built. I know I’m not the only one who thinks the new Arboc low-floor cutaway-vans are looking pretty nice.
You can talk about purpose-built small buses all day, but in the end the market is not big enough. USDOT:
Simply put, designing and building a small/medium size bus from the ground up for the US market is not viable. Even if you were to have a monopoly and get every transit agency’s business in the country, you’d be hard pressed to recover your development costs. It’s very similar to the taxicab market in that respect. That’s why Checker opted to close up shop in the 80′s rather than dump money into redesigning their cabs.
So you get manufacturers who, instead, invest their money in building transit bodies that can be installed on cheaply available, standardized, mass produced van chassis. And honestly, that system works. There are very nice, capable, durable cutaway-van based buses out there. They’ve just been slow to adapt, and we’re only now seeing low-floor versions come on the market.
I just want metro to get more 60+’ ETBs than 40′ ones … only rode on one of metro’s mini-Gilligs once … was odd not having a rear door
I’ll never forget a rainy, crush-loaded, ridiculous trip on the 242 in an 1100 (30 foot Gillig). Those things get pretty bouncy with a full load on the freeway. We stood on that bus for almost an hour in 520 traffic.
The short wheelbase and proportionally long front/rear overhang of the 30′ Gilligs results in terrible ride quality; every bump is greatly amplified and the coach makes dramatic see-sawing motions front to back. It’s an unavoidable result of the basic chassis layout, and a problem for every small bus based on a full-size bus design. On the flip side, it results in a tighter turning radius than basically any other arrangement.
Cutaway-van chassis avoid this problem by keeping the axles much closer to the extreme front and rear of the vehicle, resulting in a much longer wheelbase and better ride. The front wheels are fixed in the van-body fenders, and because the engine sits between the front wheels, rather than behind the rear axle, rear wheels can be moved further to the rear. Turning radius is compromised by the longer wheelbase, but not as much as you would expect, because the independent front suspension on these vans often allows the front wheels to pivot at a more extreme angle than on a solid bus axle.
Hmm. But bottoming-out is determined by wheelbase (not just by vehicle length), so…. I’m beginning to suspect a few of these chokepoints are very picky as to what sort of bus can traverse them.
That depends on where it’s bottoming out. Are they getting high-centered or bottoming out on the front/rear overhang? I assume it’s a high-center problem, but I’m not sure.
I’m riding as I type on one of these Gillig short buses coming back from
Snoqualmie.
I agree that quality of design and construction must be required in any replacements. That said, I think they could probably stretch the usefulness of these coaches another 5 years beyond the scheduled retirement date.
Honestly, I dislike those midget buses. They seem to make more noise than the larger ones. It might be more economical to replace them with Chevrolet Suburbans. At least they will be more quiet. And if they were used on Metro route 51, they would have more than enough room. And I am serious.
I’m curious what about the ferry constrains loading to 35′ coaches? Washington State Ferries routinely load semis with double trailers much longer than that. And while the Vashon runs might not use “Jumbo” ferries, the ones in use are more than full size. Perhaps the 118 is “correctly” sized for its run?
I’m curious about this too. Prior to the assigning of the D40LF coaches on all 118 and 119 trips (which only lasted one week because of several incidents of the LF coaches bottoming out on the ferry dock ramp), both the evening express trips routinely used 40′ Gilligs and had been that way for close to 13 years.
It’s the breakover angle.
I remember back when the 251 used to use the little green vans constantly. Boy was I surprised when I saw Gilligs run on it more recently.
A lot of stuff on that list should or will be gotten rid of anyway (38, 51, 345).
The 38 and 51, sure, but the 345 is a new one. What would replace it? Extra frequency on the 346 and the Shoreline routing of the 5? (I know the Northgate routing of the 5 is on the chopping block too.)
I said the stuff on the list, not the routes – that is, the 345 shouldn’t have those turnouts to Four Freedoms and Northwest Hospital in a perfect world. Not that the 345 wouldn’t be cuttable in a perfect world, replaced by more 346 service, making the 5 Shoreline-only, and a new east-west route on 130th replacing part of the 28 and extending at least to Lake City.
I wish Metro would buy some double decker buses like Community Transit did. They look like they could carry as many people as the articulated buses in more comfort.
My understanding is that the double-deckers are the least reliable vehicles in CT’s fleet, whereas Metro’s low-floor articulated hybrids are the most reliable vehicles in their fleet. Comparing the two, CT’s E500s need road calls about twice as often as Metro’s DE60LFs. So that’s kind of a downner.
Hopefully the kinks get ironed out of them soon, because they are nice vehicles for passengers. For all I know, they could already be fixed, I haven’t heard any new news about their reliability for a while now.
Also, I believe I read in another thread that the double-deckers aren’t for routes with a lot of closely-spaced stops.
Eh, not sure why they’d have a problem in that respect. Metro’s problem with double-deckers is that the bases can’t accommodate them. Their few disadvantages are dramatically outweighed by their advantages.
“aren’t for closely spaced stops”
I wonder why? I rode a double decker in England that had the usual urban stops every other block and folks seemed to know how to get on/off without any appreciable delay that I could see.
Ever ride the deuce in Vegas? That’s a double Decker just like Community Transit.