600-series Proterra BE40/ZX5 - Updates

[Shannon CVPI]

One of the electric buses returned to C seen it when my daughter kept saying dad bus dad bus & seen it pulling out of C

[NewFlyerMCI]

11 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

I've noticed that certain stretches of 79th Street and Chicago Ave have recently received red bus lanes and overhead signs installed. I wonder if that has anything to do with the future of the proterras and XDE40's entering service next year or so.

Which stretch? Anything west of the Dan is wasted imo.

[YoungBusLover]

13 minutes ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

Which stretch? Anything west of the Dan is wasted imo.

West of the Dan  Ryan ending at Halsted and east headed towards Kind Drive.

[NewFlyerMCI]

46 minutes ago, YoungBusLover said:

West of the Dan  Ryan ending at Halsted and east headed towards Kind Drive.

Best to hope for I guess. I just hate how the busiest section of the 79 is the one that won't get the full benefit of bus only lanes because of the narrowing of the street. I say it should be Yates or Exchange to State (or at a minimum, Jeffery to State)

[Shannon CVPI]

54 minutes ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

Best to hope for I guess. I just hate how the busiest section of the 79 is the one that won't get the full benefit of bus only lanes because of the narrowing of the street. I say it should be Yates or Exchange to State (or at a minimum, Jeffery to State)

Honestly them lanes don't speed up service like on Madison & Chicago sometimes people still be having to wait 20+ mins for a bus like on paper it will work but in real life it dont 

[artthouwill]

5 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

Which stretch? Anything west of the Dan is wasted imo.

 

5 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

West of the Dan  Ryan ending at Halsted and east headed towards Kind Drive.

There are a lot of stoo signs between Halsted and King Drive on 79th.  Unless the city aggressively tows cars from the bus lanes for parking, not much time will be saved.  Cars still have to make right turns after yielding to pedestrians and bikes. 

[rvwnsd]

6 hours ago, Shannon CVPI said:

One of the electric buses returned to C seen it when my daughter kept saying dad bus dad bus & seen it pulling out of C

 

Nice to see your daughter is carrying on your hobby of bus spotting. Looking forward to her future post about CTA's fully electric fleet.

[Shannon CVPI]

8 minutes ago, rvwnsd said:

Nice to see your daughter is carrying on your hobby of bus spotting. Looking forward to her future post about CTA's fully electric fleet.

Lol she's 3 she calls out what she sees she a be like mom dad fire truck then do the siren same thing when she sees 12

[Shannon CVPI]

38 minutes ago, rvwnsd said:

Nice to see your daughter is carrying on your hobby of bus spotting. Looking forward to her future post about CTA's fully electric fleet.

& She taking after my hobby of cars she be trying to work on her cars on the house with her tools lol 

[BusHunter]

18 hours ago, Shannon CVPI said:

One of the electric buses returned to C seen it when my daughter kept saying dad bus dad bus & seen it pulling out of C

So these 4 proterras at south shops were white unliveried? I had the opportunity to see it as my ups route is a mile or two away but these buses take so long to receive i figured they didnt have any. I did drive past south shops on thursday no proterras.

[YoungBusLover]

1 minute ago, BusHunter said:

So these 4 proterras at south shops were white unliveried? I had the opportunity to see it as my ups route is a mile or two away but these buses take so long to receive i figured they didnt have any. I did drive past south shops on thursday no proterras.

There was 6 six housed inside south shops last week but now theirs two left currently so i'm going on a wild guess that Chicago garage and Maybe 74th have received the other 4 but when I received my training at Chicago garage in October they already had two currently, one was all white while the other wa wrapped in proterras company livery. It wasn't until mid to late November the other 6 started showing up at south shops. 

[Shannon CVPI]

1 hour ago, YoungBusLover said:

There was 6 six housed inside south shops last week but now theirs two left currently so i'm going on a wild guess that Chicago garage and Maybe 74th have received the other 4 but when I received my training at Chicago garage in October they already had two currently, one was all white while the other wa wrapped in proterras company livery. It wasn't until mid to late November the other 6 started showing up at south shops. 

Oh so it's even more do they even have a garage sticker in em yet cuz most of the time I seen these they sitting in C shop area 

[YoungBusLover]

57 minutes ago, Shannon CVPI said:

Oh so it's even more do they even have a garage sticker in em yet cuz most of the time I seen these they sitting in C shop area 

They were in the pilot phase and had "Zero" decals or anything on them, they were pretty much fresh the factory made buses that looked like they were show cars at the Auto-Show to be quite honest. If they were moved it wasn't by much but from shop to shop.

[Shannon CVPI]

Just now, YoungBusLover said:

They were in the pilot phase and had "Zero" decals or anything on them, they were pretty much fresh the factory made buses that looked like they were show cars at the Auto-Show to be quite honest. If they were moved it wasn't by much but from shop to shop.

Aw ok & I missed the auto show this year bus going next year lol but they do look good 

[jajuan]

16 hours ago, artthouwill said:

 

There are a lot of stoo signs between Halsted and King Drive on 79th.  Unless the city aggressively tows cars from the bus lanes for parking, not much time will be saved.  Cars still have to make right turns after yielding to pedestrians and bikes. 

Those painted on Western between the 606 bike and pedestrian pathway and up to just north of Armitage are not helping as much as they could because folks are still parking their freaking cars on the lane during the 4-6 PM threshold that buses and right turning vehicles are supposed to have exclusive access to the lanes. On the topic of this thread, those Proterras are indeed looking good so far. Now to get them in their official liveries and testing started for their debut in service set for spring of next year. 

[rvwnsd]

14 hours ago, jajuan said:

Those painted on Western between the 606 bike and pedestrian pathway and up to just north of Armitage are not helping as much as they could because folks are still parking their freaking cars on the lane during the 4-6 PM threshold that buses and right turning vehicles are supposed to have exclusive access to the lanes. On the topic of this thread, those Proterras are indeed looking good so far. Now to get them in their official liveries and testing started for their debut in service set for spring of next year. 

It would be nice if CTA gave them a fun livery, like the new NYC MTA paint scheme or maybe an electric scheme like the ones they used on the NFI electrics.

[WCR]

Here's a Tribune article about the Proterras and CTA's future fleet in general. There are some half-truths, such as saying the first two electrics (flyers) have been testing out of service for five years, but I thought it was still worth sharing. 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/transportation/ct-biz-cta-electric-buses-wait-getting-around-20191223-bcoaitl2y5h5lgbfzk4wndggye-story.html

[BusHunter]

41 minutes ago, WCR said:

Here's a Tribune article about the Proterras and CTA's future fleet in general. There are some half-truths, such as saying the first two electrics (flyers) have been testing out of service for five years, but I thought it was still worth sharing. 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/transportation/ct-biz-cta-electric-buses-wait-getting-around-20191223-bcoaitl2y5h5lgbfzk4wndggye-story.html

I wonder what ever happened to the idea of using hybrids. CTA buses most of the time dont exceed 25 mph anyway. The buses are cheaper and more realistic than a fully electric system. The cngs out at pace south seem to be doing the job too. Saving a little is better than saving nothing. When you factor in all the gas your purchasing it gets expensive. My company was getting a tanker a week. Those hold 9000 gallons of fuel. Me alone. I'm using about 15 gallons a day over 8 to 9 hrs. It adds up. We got about 150 to 200 buses so you do the math. If for instance we were using hybrids we may use a quarter to half that. Diesel is 3 bucks a gallon. 

[NewFlyerMCI]

2 hours ago, BusHunter said:

I wonder what ever happened to the idea of using hybrids. CTA buses most of the time dont exceed 25 mph anyway. The buses are cheaper and more realistic than a fully electric system. The cngs out at pace south seem to be doing the job too. Saving a little is better than saving nothing. When you factor in all the gas your purchasing it gets expensive. My company was getting a tanker a week. Those hold 9000 gallons of fuel. Me alone. I'm using about 15 gallons a day over 8 to 9 hrs. It adds up. We got about 150 to 200 buses so you do the math. If for instance we were using hybrids we may use a quarter to half that. Diesel is 3 bucks a gallon. 

Pretty sure the biggest hurdles for hybrids are cost. WMATA is just putting in their latest delivery of diesel buses, MTA Maryland (Baltimore) is about to do the same, Community Transit hasn't had a hybrid bus since 2011 and doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon, Sound Transit since 2014 (although they've gotten CNG buses) and that's just off the top of my head. In fact, I think MBTA has been the only consistent large transportation agency to stick with hybrids after introducing them. The trend I've seen so far is full diesel and full electric, except for those places that also run heavy CNG fleets. I know with WMATA the main reasons were that hybrids were cost prohibitive and they wanted a diesel-for-diesel match, since these XD40s were replacing Orion Vs.

[BusHunter]

21 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

Pretty sure the biggest hurdles for hybrids are cost. WMATA is just putting in their latest delivery of diesel buses, MTA Maryland (Baltimore) is about to do the same, Community Transit hasn't had a hybrid bus since 2011 and doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon, Sound Transit since 2014 (although they've gotten CNG buses) and that's just off the top of my head. In fact, I think MBTA has been the only consistent large transportation agency to stick with hybrids after introducing them. The trend I've seen so far is full diesel and full electric, except for those places that also run heavy CNG fleets. I know with WMATA the main reasons were that hybrids were cost prohibitive and they wanted a diesel-for-diesel match, since these XD40s were replacing Orion Vs.

What seemed to be really smart on cta's part is the purchase of hybrid artics. They were using the same or less fuel than the 40 foot buses. What good is 35 electric buses? That's 2 routes. It takes alot of money to buy them but you are not actively updating the system. I can't help but wonder if one of the reasons why FG has buses that are 19 years old now this month, is because so much has been invested in a pipe dream technology but they are not looking at the big picture. This bus rollout reminds me so much of the Ballard #5900's. Once you acquire them you test and test and test but you do not serve anyone. CTA is not underwriters laboratory. I wonder what happened to #700 and #701, they were running in service almost everyday and they had the #700 fire and its like the bus caught the black death. What was so unsafe about that event? Why are the buses so taboo now? I get now they have been totally rebuilt to receive charges on the pan and that's new but they can't run the original way? 6 buses testing not in service is just too much testing.

[artthouwill]

Interesting posts.   You have to remember fuel prices have been coming down in recent years.   Diesel fueled buses are known commodities.   You know you can run a bus for nearly 24 hours between fuelings.

Electric buses are not a known commodity yet.   Even though you eliminate fuel from the equation,  you have to figure in charging stations along routes, batteries, and distance between charges.  This technology seems great for short distance routes, but its viability for heavy use and longer distances is really unproven.

At one time, tax credits were being given for alternative fuels, including CNG.  Since CTA (and Pace) are tax exempt agencies,  they can't themselves take advantage of the tax credits.   

CNG seems like a viable option.   It requires the agency to build infrastructure to facilitate fueling.  Would CTA convert a garage, say F or 74th to CNG?  Pace hasn't shown any indication yet that it will convert another garage to CNG anytime soon.  I haven't checked prices in a while, but while diesel fuel has been coming down,  other gasses like CNG and propane seem to be rising.   If that's the case,  then it would make sense to stick with the diesel fuel. 

I suppose one benefit of electric buses would be emissions or the lack thereof.   But I think there's something about this technology we aren't being told yet.  Even the aviation industry is trying to build an electric plane.  Anyway,  I don't see diesel fuel going away in my lifetime. 

[NewFlyerMCI]

4 hours ago, BusHunter said:

What seemed to be really smart on cta's part is the purchase of hybrid artics. They were using the same or less fuel than the 40 foot buses. What good is 35 electric buses? That's 2 routes. It takes alot of money to buy them but you are not actively updating the system. I can't help but wonder if one of the reasons why FG has buses that are 19 years old now this month, is because so much has been invested in a pipe dream technology but they are not looking at the big picture. This bus rollout reminds me so much of the Ballard #5900's. Once you acquire them you test and test and test but you do not serve anyone. CTA is not underwriters laboratory. I wonder what happened to #700 and #701, they were running in service almost everyday and they had the #700 fire and its like the bus caught the black death. What was so unsafe about that event? Why are the buses so taboo now? I get now they have been totally rebuilt to receive charges on the pan and that's new but they can't run the original way? 6 buses testing not in service is just too much testing.

In regards to the 35ft electrics, the fact that they're 35ft probably means they'll be used for short routes, thus maximizing the service provided in between charges

[BusHunter]

12 hours ago, artthouwill said:

Interesting posts.   You have to remember fuel prices have been coming down in recent years.   Diesel fueled buses are known commodities.   You know you can run a bus for nearly 24 hours between fuelings.

Electric buses are not a known commodity yet.   Even though you eliminate fuel from the equation,  you have to figure in charging stations along routes, batteries, and distance between charges.  This technology seems great for short distance routes, but its viability for heavy use and longer distances is really unproven.

At one time, tax credits were being given for alternative fuels, including CNG.  Since CTA (and Pace) are tax exempt agencies,  they can't themselves take advantage of the tax credits.   

CNG seems like a viable option.   It requires the agency to build infrastructure to facilitate fueling.  Would CTA convert a garage, say F or 74th to CNG?  Pace hasn't shown any indication yet that it will convert another garage to CNG anytime soon.  I haven't checked prices in a while, but while diesel fuel has been coming down,  other gasses like CNG and propane seem to be rising.   If that's the case,  then it would make sense to stick with the diesel fuel. 

I suppose one benefit of electric buses would be emissions or the lack thereof.   But I think there's something about this technology we aren't being told yet.  Even the aviation industry is trying to build an electric plane.  Anyway,  I don't see diesel fuel going away in my lifetime. 

Big oil would applaud your statement. They don't want us to convert to electric because it would stymie the industry. Driving is the leading profession in illinois and about 30 other states. Thats alot of fuel. Alot of arab countries have great wealth due to this. Alternative fuel vehicles in mass is getting close though. Ford is getting really smart releasing an electric mustang suv (really it's a crossover) The car industry here is on life support and it's a bold move to take it to the next level with electric trucks.  I think electric trucks are a game changer. The US automotive industry may very well be starting a big change. Alot of industries have moved to alternative fuels like ups and coca cola. It's the future.

What would cta do if a law was passed like in cali where you cant buy diesel buses anymore? I think the city should say instead of going electric by 2040 that they will model cali and be 100 percent alternative fuel buses. Now that's realistic. As you save money on fuel you have money to buy more buses. 

Something interesting is happening at my company not my yard though. My company has brought over a fleet of propane buses from Los Angeles and one of its yards serving Chicago's west side now is half propane. Ironically the buses serve my neighborhood because I live on the northwest side where I drive the south side. I dont know if it's an experiment or what but I've been to that yard and saw and used the propane fueling operations. It seems alot more sanitary and great care has been given to the fueling procedure. We have an electric bus ourself but its downstate. Kind of interesting a manufacturer of buses who produces electric ones in my line of work has put a chime on its buses similar to an ice cream truck. They claim the buses are so quiet they sneak up on you and become an accident risk.

 

[NewFlyerMCI]

On 12/20/2019 at 2:00 AM, YoungBusLover said:

I've noticed that certain stretches of 79th Street and Chicago Ave have recently received red bus lanes and overhead signs installed. I wonder if that has anything to do with the future of the proterras and XDE40's entering service next year or so.

 

On 12/20/2019 at 9:42 AM, YoungBusLover said:

Well if that's the case I hope it really gets enforced because people usually don't care but to park there cars in them so far without much issue.

 

On 12/20/2019 at 9:00 AM, Sam92 said:

Bus slow zone elimination

So having now seen the bus lanes in person, I frankly think this was a terrible idea. It'd would've been better for the lanes to be continuous, since enforcement of (some of them) not even block long lanes isn't gonna happen, especially on 79th. And they're redundant on the bridge since there's usually a bus in the far right lane anyway which naturally dissuades cars from being over there in the first place. At the very least, a lane from Halsted or Loomis to Lafayette would've done more good.

[Mr.NewFlyer1051]

found these 2 puppies at 77th