CTA New Bus Order 2020

[jajuan]

On 3/7/2021 at 3:19 PM, BusHunter said:

You know I was reading on chistreetsblog that the new buses will have on board advertising. So it will have something similar to transit TV that was on the Pace buses for awhile? Also cta wants to order vinyl seats with the order. So what the seats will be like the tmc seats in the 4400s? I kind of like those seats but they were easier to vandalize. Just don't order fiberglass seats they look cheap and are hard on your derriere. 

Cta continues saying they will still be going all electric by 2040. So if that is true this may be the last diesel order they will execute. Still going all electric is a real lofty goal, but it will be interesting  to see what happens to the gas industry as less of their product is being used. Will prices raise sky high? If so it may be good to order alternative fuel buses. Pace seems more realistic to me. 

Also the transit tracking screens you see in some buses being tested like #8011 will be standard on this order. Probably will be an improved version just because of technology.

That's a bit of an exaggeration on this possibly being the last diesel bus order. For one 2040 is still practically 20 years away, and it's simply a goal, not something that's etched entirely in stone. There's still the fact that it's possible CTA might not run this order to a full 600 buses. They still need to eventually start replacements on the remaining 400 NF standards within this decade, which I'd say would need to start by the middle of the decade. More importantly they have to get this current expansion of electric buses off the ground and show that that expansion is viable to CTA service, AND they actually have to still drastically expand the infrastructure across the city before they start pulling away from making diesel bus orders. With the way capital projects get funded in this city and construction projects tend to go once they do start, I don't see a stoppage of diesel bus orders for at least another decade realistically speaking. As for what happens to diesel prices (I think you meant fossil fuel industry as transit systems are purchasing diesel and not gas that cars are filling up with), if demand is dropping, the price also actually drops because at that point the industry would then have extra supply that they can't sell off fast enough. 

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

That's a bit of an exaggeration on this possibly being the last diesel bus order. For one 2040 is still practically 20 years away, and it's simply a goal, not something that's etched entirely in stone. There's still the fact that it's possible CTA might not run this order to a full 600 buses. They still need to eventually start replacements on the remaining 400 NF standards within this decade, which I'd say would need to start by the middle of the decade. More importantly they have to get this current expansion of electric buses off the ground and show that that expansion is viable to CTA service, AND they actually have to still drastically expand the infrastructure across the city before they start pulling away from making diesel bus orders. With the way capital projects get funded in this city and construction projects tend to go once they do start, I don't see a stoppage of diesel bus orders for at least another decade realistically speaking. As for what happens to diesel prices (I think you meant fossil fuel industry as transit systems are purchasing diesel and not gas that cars are filling up with), if demand is dropping, the price also actually drops because at that point the industry would then have extra supply that they can't sell off fast enough. 

Well the #6400s are 18 years old for the most part, some a little older than that. So if these newer buses lasted 18 years and they were delivered in 2022 well then that's a 2040 retirement. I dont see an order for 600 finishing before 2026. That's just 14 years away from 2040. Is it set in stone? Probably not and cta anyway has a tendancy to change its forecast due to capital demands. I still say that was an extreme statement to say we would be all electric by 2040. Maybe alternative fuel but not electric. 

As far as gas prices, what the oil industry produces dictates the market. Electric is still not entirely environmentally friendly as you have to produce the electricity to fuel all of the new supply demands. Really solar is the most friendly source of energy but that's probably going to be a future power source. I was kind of interested this morning reading about a renewable natural gas energy used to fuel an xcelsior artic. It seems to run on organic waste and not only does it keep the air clean it reduces landfill waste, so it's doing double duty. Is this like the back to the future delorean that runs on garbage. Well shall see!!

[jajuan]

2 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Well the #6400s are 18 years old for the most part, some a little older than that. So if these newer buses lasted 18 years and they were delivered in 2022 well then that's a 2040 retirement. I dont see an order for 600 finishing before 2026. That's just 14 years away from 2040. Is it set in stone? Probably not and cta anyway has a tendancy to change its forecast due to capital demands. I still say that was an extreme statement to say we would be all electric by 2040. Maybe alternative fuel but not electric. 

As far as gas prices, what the oil industry produces dictates the market. Electric is still not entirely environmentally friendly as you have to produce the electricity to fuel all of the new supply demands. Really solar is the most friendly source of energy but that's probably going to be a future power source. I was kind of interested this morning reading about a renewable natural gas energy used to fuel an xcelsior artic. It seems to run on organic waste and not only does it keep the air clean it reduces landfill waste, so it's doing double duty. Is this like the back to the future delorean that runs on garbage. Well shall see!!

Yeah the 6400s are 18 years old on average, and the oldest of the 1000s are already 15. Even if CTA doesn't retire a series completely, it still has the history for buying more buses to knock out the oldest and worse conditioned buses out of that series. Those two factors in conjunction with CTA showing no real signs of building the infrastructure outside the garages for more electric buses beyond the Navy Pier, Midway and Chicago/Austin terminals lead me to conclude and stand by that conclusion that CTA is not going to stop ordering more diesels before the decade is out. That being said, I agree with you that CTA is probably pushing it with a declaration of being all electric by 2040. 

As for the oil industry, yes what they put out is a big factor in what prices at the pump may be. But it's still not the only factor. They still have to have a big demand from consumers to keep the prices up. If a significant number of customers drop that demand, the prices drop. That's become especially true now that America is producing a majority of its own oil again and actually increasing its exports to be a force in its own right on the world export market. This is why OPEC manipulating supply hasn't been as much a factor in America's energy policy as much as it used to be. Electricity overall isn't as clean as it could be because it has more to do with electric power being produced still by coal fire fueled plants along with nuclear powered energy plants. Solar power is still a part of the overall electric power market, though with the key details that you pay a solar company to build and install the solar power infrastructure needed at your home or business to generate a significant portion of your electric power. You don't completely escape ComEd or whatever traditional electric company delivers electric power. What actually happens is after applying for proper net metering, you pay a smaller bill based on how much solar power is generated for your home and deducted from what the power company's grid would have delivered. The electric companies look at that as power "bounced back" to the overall grid for supply. 

[BusHunter]

I remember reading, I believe, a chistreetsblog article that stated cta was going to replace the #6400s with the first 100 Novas from the new order. So if they ordered 600, they would really only be replacing 500 #1000s so far. That does make sense. The proterras are just 5 buses, claiming to finally get running by the end of the year. (But I've been hearing that song and dance since 2018) even if they got 20 buses, it's only 20 buses. So it may end up cta gets half novas and half something else for a good healthy 50/50 split. I always was a fan of the dual order of the tmc's and flxibles. Plus we saw how fast they could get almost 1000 buses. I wonder how they did a dual bid though and keep each winner a seperate company?