Pace 30 ft bus order continually delayed

[Busjack]

Montoring the Pace Active/In Progress bid site, the order for 30 foot buses has been set back a month once a month. The bids were originally due in September, 2004, and now the bid opening date is July 7, 2005 (with no assurance that it won't be reset in another month). The money for 43 30 foot buses was in the 2004 capital budget. Is this due to a lack of capital funds, or as the Tribune indicates, because the capital funds for them haven't been spent yet, they might be lost?

[trainman8119]

Maybe it was lost, but my guess is that they used the money for operations. They have been in a big brew haa haa about how federal funds can be used. Since their budget keeps coming up short, they try to use their capital money to keep service running, primarily by paying the contractors for service. They have been winning the battles in court to do this, but sooner or later they are going to get caught short. I am not saying that this is the case here, but I wonder if they might have already. I wonder how many buses they could have bought if they didn't waste their time on those bike racks.

[Busjack]

Since a bus costs about $300,000, couldn't be more than one.

[Busjack]

This finally went to the "opened not yet awarded" category. Only a year late. Any prediction on the winner?

[Busjack]

It was finally awarded to El Dorado National. [This was finally stated in the press release, although the sketch on the home page, when blown up, was clearly a new design EZ Rider II.]

The mystery: If the approved Pace budget said that there were funds for only 18 of these, how can there be a firm order for 96, even if bids "came in well under budget by more than $25,000 per vehicle?" Also, if the options for up to 222 are exercised in the next five years, this apparently will become the dominant new bus in the Pace fleet (and may indicate either the expectation of a great increase in feeder service or that this is the eventual replacement for 2272-2378).

[jesi2282]

Do these buses have back doors?

[Busjack]

Click on the "home page" link in Post #5 and make your own conclusion.

[busfan4022]

That might be a little weird to ride a little bus, plus with no back doors. It might be just me but that would feel REALLY weird to keep getting off at the front door!:(

[Busjack]

But I guess the alternative is to have virtually no seats (which might be how the CTA Optimas might be) once you take into account the wheelchair position, back door, and wheel humps (at least the picture on the ElDorado site shows that they can put seats there). The announcement

on the 6262s said that a 40 foot bus has 34 seats; the ElDorados might come close to that.

The first batch will be replacing the Chance RT-52s, which just have a door behind the driver's position, anyway.

Three asides:

• Remember when a 40 foot bus had a 5307 model number, because it had 53 seats?
  
• How many passengers use the rear door anyway?
  
• I wonder if any of you go back far enough to when the CTA buses had stickers saying to use the EXIT DOR? They couldn't spell then, either.
  

[trainman8119]

Three asides:

• Remember when a 40 foot bus had a 5307 model number, because it had 53 seats?
  
• How many passengers use the rear door anyway?
  
• I wonder if any of you go back far enough to when the CTA buses had stickers saying to use the EXIT DOR? They couldn't spell then, either.
  

I didn't realize that the 5307 related to the number of seats, but I do remember the days when there was seating for 50+. A time when the CTA (among others) cared about fannies in seats instead of hands in straps. I would think that a fair amout of people would use the rear door...also, the benefit would be an extra way out in the event of an emergency. For those who remember , the original new looks, plus the old Twins and Flxibles actually had 3 doors as they had an emergency door on the driver side of the bus across from the "exit dor".  See 8600 and 349 about the center of the bus.

I do remember the exitdor signs...and at least they said "please" (use the exit dor).