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Posted by
Terrapin Station
on Fri Oct 12 10:00:08 2007, in response to Re: Newest Hybrid for MTA, posted by Mr RT on Fri Oct 12 07:31:43 2007.
edf40wrjww2msgDetailB:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Logo is Wachovia, not the manufacturer. Also, I doubt they are serious about buying this exact bus, as the article claims. Instead I think they are just evaluating the concept in general.
Bus of the future has maiden voyage -- amNY.com
Bus of the future has maiden voyage
By David Freedlander, amNewYork Staff Writer
dfreedlander@am-ny.com
October 12, 2007
"Come on in, it still takes your money," the bus driver said yesterday to confused would-be riders staring dumbfounded at the MTA's latest rollout, a 35-foot-long electric hybrid that's on a two-month-long trial run up and down 42nd Street.
As the bus took its inaugural rush-hour run yesterday, giddy straphangers waiting in the rain in Turtle Bay for the crosstown journey piled in like school kids on a field trip. "Oh, it feels like I'm going to the airport," said one man as he climbed aboard with his wife.
Indeed, the newest addition to the MTA's fleet does feel like it's about to drop riders off at the Rent-a-Car lot. With clean, blue cloth seats, silver poles without straps, and big tinted windows, the bus promises all the comforts New Yorkers have come not to expect on public transportation.
The bus is on a 60-day test run throughout the city. If all goes well, the MTA plans on purchasing a bunch of them. It gets eight to 10 miles per gallon on its hybrid electric turbine engine. And without all that gas-powered churning of most buses, it's pin-drop quiet too. Quiet enough in fact to amplify every other cell phone conversation being had on the bus. And quiet enough to hear the ear- rattling rap music pouring out of another rider's headphones.
"This is the maiden voyage," explained Gene Vilarelle in a thick, homegrown accent. He's been assigned by the MTA to ride up and down 42nd Street every day for the next couple of weeks to gauge rider reaction. "I'm the maitre d'. Who'd like some drinks?"
The ride of the future, though, still moves at a horse-and-buggy pace because of traffic, testing the straphangers' typical New York patience.
"Your average speed on 42nd Street is 7 mph," Vilarelle said. "If we hit all the lights you'd really see this thing purr."
Riders piled on, getting up to make room for the old or infirm.
At 98 inches across, the bus is narrower than the rest of the MTA fleet.
"There's no room to put your legs," said Joan Cuomo, 84. "A lot of tourists take the bus. Where are they supposed to put their bags?"
The windows are penthouse-sized, but tinted, making it difficult to see out, and the back windows are covered completely with the logo of the New Zealand based company that manufactured it.
"How am I supposed to get off," yells a middle-aged blonde haired woman with a Burberry scarf and Prada sunglasses from the rear of the bus. "There's no buzzer back here. What we supposed to do, just yell at the driver?"
"This is just a prototype," Vilarelle explains. "If we decide we want to buy more of them they will come fully outfitted."
"But I need to get off on now! Where's Fifth Avenue?" Her high heels catch on the stairs as she stumbles out after missing her stop.
Vilarelle shrugs. "New Yorkers are used to things a certain way, I guess. They really don't like change."
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