Alexander Hirji

That’s part of a separate project, which is still ongoing

Out of all of the options, I think they picket the best one not going to lie

What exactly are the phases here of this “phased opening”

Yes but they won’t run there ever. They’ll just be used as “tow trucks” elsewhere (like over the Dolores hill on the J), since the new LRVs can’t accommodate the tow bar adaptors necessary to tow PCCs around.

CPUC regulations generally make this impossible, beyond the more practical issues surrounding electrification, accessibility and the wharf merchants shunning anything “modern.” There will be at least one Breda around for work purposes, but that’s obviously less intensive than passenger certified.

Not Balboa Park though, somehow they counted that as an open air station and it never has had them.

Or enclosed stations without side access, BART’s Warm Springs Station has them for that reason I think?

Not to mention, at the time phase I was designed, phase II wasn’t planned to include both tracks on 4th in front of the Caltrain station. The working design for phase II was still the split 3rd/4th st alignment on the surface, and the 3rd st subway north of Bryant.

Fairly common especially around construction. Some operators also like to just keep going to wherever is convenient to put poles up instead of at the actual automatic re-poling “pan” which can increase the amount of time spent on battery mode.

The original (and still installed) battery extender system was intended much more for detours rather than constant use, which has caused the batteries to wear down faster and have less useful life than anticipated, which (depending on how old a particular vehicle is) could also factor into range

Yes/no, the buses themselves restrict down acceleration at 50%, and then at 20% the onboard software limits the vehicle to 15 mph and limits it to half acceleration. That could get some but not all routes back to the barn, depending on how much of the grid is down.

Only four buses in the entire fleet have that upgrade. The rest still have the same old ~5-8 mile max range, and will continue to do so for several years until they get their “mid-life” rehab.

They also have half the battery life of the existing handheld readers 😀

This is true, every agency using the new scanners has reported that they take around 5-10 seconds per verification, given the querying that the reader has to do.

It was ruled out a while ago at this point, it’s technically impossible

Arrivederci 🫡

Yay, SB63 signed into law, authorizing a regional transit funding measure for the SF Bay Area, essential to save and improve service for BART, Muni, AC Transit, Caltrain! Bill allows a signature-gathering effort that would passage with 50%+1 of the vote. www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/u...

Muni had to remain a part of the project, including financing most of the overall cost, because that 2022 bond failed, which took away the major dedicated funding source for this project. If that had passed, then things likely would have turned out very differently.

I mean the idea was more along the lines of traditional joint development, provide a needed resource (housing) in tandem with the bus yard and also bring in revenue for the agency. That whole equation fell apart in 2020 when D9 and D10 supes mandated it be 100% affordable in exchange for approvals.

I think in a way yes the federal money did flood the market almost too much, but at the same time that observation is tricky because the global supply chains were so screwed for 2 ish years. So I’m not sure exactly what the true impact is, but I’d still hazard that it did have an impact.

I think you see the issue with federal cash wrt how many people tried to order and rush BEBs into service during the Biden years, and how people tried to reform things too late. Doing a clean slate PCC style reform would have been a better start rather than working backwards to standardize imo.

Add in global tensions and trade wars, and the risk of having to pay ransom to get bus parts in the country for your random Greek bus manufacturer becomes a giant issue. Going with the somewhat reliable but expensive choice is 100% going to seem safer for a public utility.

And finally a note about why others can’t break in: risk. Agencies can’t afford to place risky bets nowadays on things like buses. Money is tight and they need something reliable. New flyer is expensive but a known player, random European company is unknown and a risky proposition wrt reliability.

A certain Bay Area agency literally has one of their buses condemned and set aside because it’s a fire hazard since proterra hasn’t been bothered to fix it for over two years. Bottom of the barrel bus manufacturer - yes they’re bankrupt now but that wasn’t always the case!

The bigger thing that I think is also at play is that parts/support game. It comes as no surprise to me that Nova left given that New Flyer has so much of the market cornered with its parts and support game. Likewise with why NF has such a hold on large agencies and others can’t break in.

If a vendor cannot send a tech to fix their broken product for over a year, it comes to no surprise that said vendor will get a bad rep. If that vendor also tweaks with battery safety settings and lies to agencies about that, it also comes as no surprise that said vendor will go under.

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Of note here, this isn’t exactly true. Proterra went under because their product was inferior to the big players product, they cut corners with safety, their price point was out of touch with reality, and their customer support was beyond pathetic.

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