[PRCo] Re: OT: Muni to test double-deckers!!!! YAY!

[Jim Holland]

"C. B." <brill21e at ...> wrote:

I have lived with double deck buses all my life, and I know that they 
work quite nicely. However, I would predict that the San Francisco trial 
will be a total failure (if not a disaster); not because of the buses, 
but because of the people using them. I would be willing to bet that 
your average San Franciscan will board the bus, then stop and try to 
decide what to do next (=hold-up).  Next there is the problem of 
alighting. People in the upper deck may (initially) not allow enough 
time from leaving the seat to get to the door(s) before the bus arrives 
at the stop and more people board (=blockage=holdup). Imagine this and 
worse at every stop! Also imaging the pantomime if an overweight 
passenger gets stuck in the stair well. And this is serious, because 
people are not used to these stairs and are unaware that they might get 
stuck. As an aside, I remember seeing an enormous woman getting stuck 
trying to descend the stairs of a Glasgow Standard Car.    She got up 
(with a struggle) but could not get down as she was wedged and her feet 
did not reach the stairs. All very funny -- the stuff of cartoons
--
but the tram had to be taken out of service and run to the depot so the 
poor woman could be extracted without injury. Other passengers exited 
via the front stairs. The bus will probably have only one 
staircase........ Please note that I am a great supporter of 'deckers, 
but I can see a few problems. I would love to be wrong.  I really feel 
that the way to go in SF is Streetcar/Tramway -- NOT fully fledged LRT 
which seems to cause 10 times the disruption of a streetcar line and 10 
times the cost.

Chas

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Jim  Holland
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Studying Pittsburgh Railways Company (PRCo)
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..............................From 1930 -- 1950
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Pennsylvania  Trolley  Museum  (PTM)
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http://www.pa-trolley.org/
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N.M.R.A.
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http://www.nmra.org/