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What's the incentive to do anything about it? All they do is look at the overall numbers, which shows that 70% of the fleet are less than 15 years old, 60% are low-floors, and about 70% have air conditioning. I don't think anyone breaks it down by garage, so they look at the overall and think "well if you're riding/driving a bus, your odds of getting an unairconditioned bus are fairly low, and you're most likely going to have a lowfloor." Even the Oregonian seemed to think that was the case "So, if you're taking TriMet today, let’s hope you don’t end up on one of the system's 167 buses without air conditioning."
I live on the west side. I work on the west side. I can guarantee every single day that unless one of the buses I commute on daily breaks down and is replaced with a 2900, it will be an unairconditioned high-floor 1700 or 1800. The oldest and worst buses in the fleet are tucked away on the west side, where unless they are used on one of the very small number of routes that pass through downtown from the west side and don't have a dedicated 2900, yeah, the odds of a downtown rider getting on one are pretty low.
If the old fleet was distributed evenly across all the garages and riders on the 6 were as likely to get a 1700 or 1800 as riders on the 62, maybe TriMet would be more willing to do something about it.
Al, gotta agree, it's adrenalin city when the power steering goes out (I assume a 1700 series?) That series bus normally has such light steering with so many turns of the wheel for any turn, that when it goes out, the steering wheel feels frozen in place! I had a 1700 bus go out on me as I was starting that sharp left from SW 6th onto SW Sheridan heading southbound. I had to brace myself and tug on one side of the steering wheel with all my strength to not end up in Duniway Park! Scary stuff. (The riders had no idea until I stopped around the corner and told them our bus was done for the night.)
4 comments:
It bothers me to no end that we have an aging fleet and nothing has been done about it for over 10 years.
What's the incentive to do anything about it? All they do is look at the overall numbers, which shows that 70% of the fleet are less than 15 years old, 60% are low-floors, and about 70% have air conditioning. I don't think anyone breaks it down by garage, so they look at the overall and think "well if you're riding/driving a bus, your odds of getting an unairconditioned bus are fairly low, and you're most likely going to have a lowfloor." Even the Oregonian seemed to think that was the case "So, if you're taking TriMet today, let’s hope you don’t end up on one of the system's 167 buses without air conditioning."
I live on the west side. I work on the west side. I can guarantee every single day that unless one of the buses I commute on daily breaks down and is replaced with a 2900, it will be an unairconditioned high-floor 1700 or 1800. The oldest and worst buses in the fleet are tucked away on the west side, where unless they are used on one of the very small number of routes that pass through downtown from the west side and don't have a dedicated 2900, yeah, the odds of a downtown rider getting on one are pretty low.
If the old fleet was distributed evenly across all the garages and riders on the 6 were as likely to get a 1700 or 1800 as riders on the 62, maybe TriMet would be more willing to do something about it.
Al, gotta agree, it's adrenalin city when the power steering goes out (I assume a 1700 series?)
That series bus normally has such light steering with so many turns of the wheel for any turn, that when it goes out, the steering wheel feels frozen in place!
I had a 1700 bus go out on me as I was starting that sharp left from SW 6th onto SW Sheridan heading southbound. I had to brace myself and tug on one side of the steering wheel with all my strength to not end up in Duniway Park! Scary stuff. (The riders had no idea until I stopped around the corner and told them our bus was done for the night.)
YUP! 1700 series!
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