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

[Jim Holland]

"Bob Murphy" <isedit at ...> wrote:

I think double-deckers are a waste of time.

The historical background on double-deckers is, for the most part, a 
story of inflexibility and over regulation on the part of the London 
Metropolitan Police who were the motor vehicle regulatory branch there 
in the early 20th century and, I think, before.

The Plods restricted motor omnibuses to an envelope (from memory) 26' 
long (later 28') and 7'6" wide (90"). That was so restrictive there was 
only way to go to increase the passenger capacity of Passenger Service 
Vehicles. Up!

The London buses were so short the English had to have export models 
with wheelbases long enough to be practical in the rest of the world 
including their Empire.

One of the great advantages of double deck designs in the 20th century 
in London was open rear platforms which made them very, very accessible 
in London's traffic jams. You could come down the stairs and exit almost 
anywhere between stops. Brilliant. I lived in London for a year when the 
backbone of London Transport's fleet was RTs and RMs, both half-cab 
pre-select shift double deckers with open rear platforms.

Much of the natural advantage of double deckers disappeared when open 
rear platforms did.

The problem of dwell time is the absolute elephant in the kitchen 
here.    Without the advantage of open rear platforms and the ability to 
board and alight anywhere in traffic double deckers would be hopeless at 
bus stops. Our schmucks can't even get from the back seat to the center 
doors now let alone schlepp their way down a tight set of stairs.

Any lines with enough passenger demand to strain capacity of our current 
large buses should be running subway trains, light rail or a combination 
of light rail and buses (the latter for local stops say from Geary and 
Market to 10th Avenue).

I can't remember the standard of measurement but London and other 
European cities traditionally have much slower traffic and more 
restricted street networks than American cities (and higher population 
densities) so their solutions are necessarily very different.

We need higher vehicle speeds and can afford bigger public transport 
vehicles than European cities, albeit SF's situation is almost European 
due to it's being surrounded by water so it couldn't sprawl when the 
city was being built.

RT Murphy

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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/