Pace Construction

[artthouwill]

I suppose that CNG cold be delivered by truck which is what would happen after Pace installs the tanjs.  Otherwise the trucks would have to fuel each bus.  I don't remember the n parking setup at S so I don't know how feasible that would be. 

[Pace831]

2 hours ago, artthouwill said:

I suppose that CNG cold be delivered by truck which is what would happen after Pace installs the tanjs.  Otherwise the trucks would have to fuel each bus.  I don't remember the n parking setup at S so I don't know how feasible that would be. 

Since you mentioned it, here's the aerial view of Pace south. Note the buses parked in the lot to the west, which was previously a lot for semi trailers, likely due to the construction inside the garage. I assume the CNG installation will require some expansion of the facility, so will that be done In the space on the west side of the building?

In this area, CNG is typically delivered through the underground pipeline network. It is usually only delivered by truck to areas too remote to justify building a pipeline. Even if it were delivered by truck to Markham, I doubt it would be practical to fuel buses directly from the truck because Pace would have to pay the trucking company for the extra time required to do so, as opposed to fueling buses from the tank on site. The latter is what Pace has already decided on, as you noted, but doesn't really have to do with the parking setup.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, Pace831 said:

I assume the CNG installation will require some expansion of the facility, so will that be done In the space on the west side of the building?

The only thing (other than the fueling station itself) said about construction inside the garage was that they had to eliminate internal combustion sources, such as open pilot lights in the furnace.

There is also supposed to be the South Campus construction (acceptance center, customer service center)..

1 hour ago, Pace831 said:

In this area, CNG is typically delivered through the underground pipeline network.

When NABI tried to sell 45Cs to Pace, there was a representative from some gas company, offering to build a compressor and a fueling station. So, yes, that's what will be done.

1 hour ago, Pace831 said:

Note the buses parked in the lot to the west

If you go to Google Maps and blow it up, those are 2400s, i.e. scrap. The ones immediately to the west of the building are 5800 series paratransits, i.e. also scrap. So that blows that theory.

[Pace831]

35 minutes ago, Busjack said:

If you go to Google Maps and blow it up, those are 2400s, i.e. scrap. The ones immediately to the west of the building are 5800 series paratransits, i.e. also scrap. So that blows that theory

Looking closer at it, there are indeed 2400s there. There are also some 6XXX buses there which is what made me think it was overflow from the garage, but they must be retired ones. Also, the five parked in their own row on the north side must be 1951-1955.

[Busjack]

On 1/9/2016 at 2:06 PM, BusHunter said:

wonder how long do they have before they have to commit to the 21st bus?

Assuming that ENC fulfilled its obligation for the first 20 buses, only thing in the solicitation is:

Not clear when the notice to proceed was given, but the statement in Moving Forward of "[O]ver the course of the year" makes sense. Of course, as I have frequently mentioned, the start date is off by approximately 18 months.

[artthouwill]

What are the fleet numbers on the 20 that are at the acceptance facility? 

[Pace831]

1 hour ago, artthouwill said:

What are the fleet numbers on the 20 that are at the acceptance facility? 

15500-15520, reported here.

[BusHunter]

11 minutes ago, Pace831 said:

15500-15520, reported here.

That's 21 buses.

[Pace831]

8 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

That's 21 buses.

It's 20 if we assume there is no 15513.

[artthouwill]

It will be interesting to see how CNG responds to extreme Temps hot or cold, especially at fueling time.   I know that there are issues with propane tanks in extreme temps.  It may not be wisdom to make a garage 100 percent CNG.

[Busjack]

24 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

I know that there are issues with propane tanks in extreme temps.

I don't know of any CTA bus breakdowns caused by anything like that in the 20 years CTA ran propane buses. Krambles sure didn't mention it, just that propane buses became unavailable.

Also, CNG buses were used in Toronto and upstate NY. NFTA (Buffalo) just got some.

[Busjack]

The video stream of the Jan Board meeting has the implementation schedule. Launch in Feb. Garage, though, not ready until summer.

[Pace831]

8 hours ago, Busjack said:

The video stream of the Jan Board meeting has the implementation schedule. Launch in Feb. Garage, though, not ready until summer.

Here's the link to it. If you want to skip ahead, the part about the CNG buses is at the 23 minute mark.

What I found most interesting was the explanation of the parking situation for 755/855 in Plainfield.

[BusHunter]

2 hours ago, Pace831 said:

Here's the link to it. If you want to skip ahead, the part about the CNG buses is at the 23 minute mark.

What I found most interesting was the explanation of the parking situation for 755/855 in Plainfield.

Lots of breakup of this stream, maybe I need to switch computers. CTA's board meeting was better in terms of frame rate on Youtube.

[Busjack]

44 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Lots of breakup of this stream, maybe I need to switch computers. CTA's board meeting was better in terms of frame rate on Youtube.

Speaking of computers,I'm not sure what Pace uses, as I can't get it on Firefox, but can get it on Chrome. About the only part I got there was Metzger talking about the CNG bus and one director saying that now that gas is $2/gal, the payback is poor.

The intro of foreheads walking across the logo wasn't that impressive either. My  main interest was seeing the Powerpoint with the schedule embedded in the video.

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

Speaking of computers,I'm not sure what Pace uses, as I can't get it on Firefox, but can get it on Chrome. About the only part I got there was Metzger talking about the CNG bus and one director saying that now that gas is $2/gal, the payback is poor.

The intro of foreheads walking across the logo wasn't that impressive either. My  main interest was seeing the Powerpoint with the schedule embedded in the video.

I was googling around about CNG buses and there was a story that said the buses will save over the lifetime of the bus about 140K a bus. That includes the overhead they'd have to pay for CNG versus a diesel bus. I forget where I saw that, but it gives us some insight into the cost savings.

I don't know if going electric is cheaper yet (UPS did say they would save 80K a year on it's vehicles) or having a plug in hybrid saves money. Basically they are going from one utility to another. The only real cost plus is if you can wipe out the maintenance, which they might be able to do with electric, but they still need tires and drive shafts and electric motors etc.

If these agencies took whatever they saved and held it in an escrow on the side, they could essentially buy more buses with the cost savings, especially with electric and get themselves an impressive fleet of alternate fuel vehicles. But that's in the cards for the future anyway.

BTW, what is this I keep hearing about a new way to produce energy from sand whether it's fuel or any utility. I keep getting these popups or infomercials saying this is the reason the fuel price is dropping and fortune 500 companies are investing in this new utility production thus ending any need for big oil companies. Too good to be true??? Or what???

[Busjack]

35 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

I was googling around about CNG buses and there was a story that said the buses will save over the lifetime of the bus about 140K a bus. That includes the overhead they'd have to pay for CNG versus a diesel bus.

My impression of the director's remarks was based on the differential between diesel fuel and natural gas prices. However, my view is that the cost difference between a diesel and CNG Axess is about $70,000, which isn't that much. His Green comments are relevant to the point that the source of funding was state grants ("Gov. Quinn's Illinois Jobs Now"), and the state made a deal then about going green. $6,370,000 of that source of money was not going into diesel fuel.

I'm not so sure about the difference in overhead, as there still is an internal combustion engine to maintain, but certainly fewer pollution controls.

35 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

I don't know if going electric is cheaper yet

The problem there is even if you accept the premise of the CTA CMAQ proposal that was allowed, the capital cost is $300K more a bus, not $70K. Of course, then you don't have to maintain an internal combustion engine. Again, CMAQ was willing to pay the capital cost.

35 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

BTW, what is this I keep hearing about a new way to produce energy from sand whether it's fuel or any utility.

Maybe you are thinking of tar sands oil. The Whiting Refinery was converted to handle it, but that was the source of the petcoke controversy in South Chicago involving the Koch Brothers.

 

[Busjack]

On 1/15/2016 at 0:37 AM, Busjack said:

The video stream of the Jan Board meeting has the implementation schedule. Launch in Feb. Garage, though, not ready until summer.

Looks like we can throw  out "Launch in Feb."

[BusHunter]

I noticed that the Salvation Army building on Mt Prospect/Algonquin has a big for sale sign on the corner. I didn't notice that before. So I wonder if that means Pace is not interested or was cast out?

[andrethebusman]

CTA never had problems fueling propane buses, hot or cold. In addition, there were only a couple of "accidents", the biggest being when the fueling facility at Kedzie went up, supposedly because a tanker pulled away with the hose still attached. Otherwise, the only other propane realated incident I ever heard about was about the same time when a leak of some sort, apparently from a bus fuel tank, caused a fire that got six 5500-series propanes at 69th.

 

[Busjack]

9 hours ago, BusHunter said:

I noticed that the Salvation Army building on Mt Prospect/Algonquin has a big for sale sign on the corner. I didn't notice that before. So I wonder if that means Pace is not interested or was cast out?

The Daily Herald previously had an article that the alderman was opposed, and since the Pace board is all mayors or former mayors, they weren't going to push it.

[MetroShadow]

Rosemont TC should start construction very soon...

[BusHunter]

Looking over the project looks like they are extending the island platforms. I don't know why they would want to do that? How do they expect the buses that share bays to pass each other? You know what would have been ingenious is if they actually made cutout bays or straight pullin bays along the east sidewalk on the bus terminal side. Then they could have added routes unless that is where they intend to put the express?  Looks like they are still short bays. They have 6 bays and how many routes? 10 if you don't count express I-90 routes but I suppose #600 will become something else. Don't know about #610 and #616? 

[BusHunter]

They could have possibly done cut out bays on the regular bay side, they could have got 3 buses per bay. Possibly they could fit in 15 buses. Trouble is that terminal is too small a piece of real estate for what they need. They almost need a jeff park size terminal. Why not double up on the parking with a garage and expand the bus terminal? Or if they wanted a more frugal solution just run the express' or something else to cumberland/blue. It has some space.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, BusHunter said:

How do they expect the buses that share bays to pass each other? Y

I don't think they do. One bus will move up when the other leaves. The map negates the layover space currently parallel to River Road.

 

1 hour ago, BusHunter said:

Or if they wanted a more frugal solution just run the express' or something else to cumberland/blue.

Traffic congestion is bad enough at the River Road toll plaza; it is horrendous at the I-190 merge. Driving from O'Hare, I was lucky to get to Cumberland SB. The other question gets down to who owns the parking lot, and who would build a garage and operate it. I'm sure neither comes within the CMAQ grant to Pace.

4 hours ago, MetroShadow said:

Rosemont TC should start construction very soon...

Only ambiguity in the map is what is meant by Stage 3 CTA islands, since CTA buses don't serve the station. Since they are closest to the access from the toll plaza, maybe that's where the Pace express buses will stop, while more local routes (221, 223, 230, 303, 326, etc). go to the rebuilt islands near the station.