New Muni buses fail the hill test
Muni bought a bunch of new buses to add to its fleet, but tests are showing that the new buses might not be able to handle San Francisco’s famous hills, the SF Examiner reports. The city spent about $26 million to buy the new buses from New Flyer Industries last year, knowing that these buses can’t handle inclines of more than 10 percent, according to the Examiner.
WTF, right? SFMTA plans to run these buses on flat routes instead of getting into situations like this.
Here’s more:
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency tested its newest buses last November before letting rubber hit the cement, but the results of those tests — obtained by the Examiner — show Muni’s
new 60-foot electric buses don’t meet the agency’s own acceleration requirements for even moderately steep hills.SFMTA officials told the Examiner they knew the buses couldn’t handle grades above 10 percent, so the agency would run them only on The City’s flatter routes.
Among the steepest routes in the Muni system are the 1-California and the 22-Fillmore. One portion of Fillmore is graded at over 18 percent, according to topographical maps.
You can read all about the test data over at the Examiner.
Just like the old buses when I was a kid riding the 24, which couldn’t climb the Castro Street hill if there were too many people on board. The able-bodied were made to get out and walk to the top.
Uh…
I think it’ll be fine. Does San Francisco even have that many hills?
Put some lifts on them! #monsterbus
Problem: we’re talking about 60-foot ETB’s here, which only run on the 49 and 14 – two of the flattest routes in the city, where the busses do fine. The steeper routes the author notes the 60-ft ETBs would have issues on…never use 60-ft ETBs. What matters there is the performance of the not-yet-arrived 40-ft ETBs, which are smaller and thus should have better performance.
Oh Jesus. Can they do anything right except spending in the wrong thing?
Oh Muni! What happened!?!?
Just take the bus lines out of commission; the city sold the bus stops for a dollar anyway sooooo ….
Electric trolleys shouldn’t have any problems climbing steep hills… This is a nasty surprise!
From what I have read, these articulated buses were never supposed to run on the steepest lines. They were built on a piggyback order with Seattle Metro Transit (so the specifications were to suit both cities). But they were built only with one motor, while the older buses were built with two. But the current fleet needs to be replaced, so this order was made.