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Written by Dave Mabell
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Thursday, November 26 2009, 8:30 PM |
They don’t run faster, but they look sleeker. So it will be easy to identify the city’s newest transit buses.
Five low-floor NovaBus vehicles were unveiled Thursday as the newest in the LA Transit fleet, allowing several aging General Motors coaches to be retired — for a second time — while providing extra capacity for planned route improvements.
“Getting them will make a significant difference for us,” says Wade Coombs, manager of transit planning and schedules.
With ridership and route frequency increasing, he says, LA Transit had to place a high-floor “Classic” coach back on the Indian Battle Heights route this fall — in addition to the normal low-floor service on Route 32. Two of the “new-look” GM coaches, actually older than the GM-design Classics, were also taken out of retirement to cover school runs.
They’ll be mothballed again now that the NovaBus additions have been made. The European-style coaches are the city’s first from NovaBus, a Volvo subsidiary based in Saint-Eustache, a northern suburb of Montreal.
Along with a new aerodynamic design and paint scheme, the buses feature air conditioning, high-back padded seats, a wider front entrance and brighter destination signs.
City council approved their purchase earlier this year when the NovaBus tender came in lower than New Flyer, builder of all the other full-sized, low-floor buses plying Lethbridge routes.
LA Transit increased peak-time service on the well-used Indian Battle Heights route to four trips an hour this fall, Coombs said. The new coaches were expected earlier this fall, just after Lethbridge routes began their fall and winter frequencies.
Coombs says two of the coaches are needed to replace two of the city’s oldest buses — now in use, but usually held in reserve — while two will cover recent route upgrades and one is needed for more westside route improvements next fall. With new homes being completed in many western neighbourhoods, LA Transit needs to provide service to SunRidge, Copperwood and the newest areas of West Highlands.
Bus service will also be required to the new Crossings community when two new high schools open there next fall.
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