Bus Photo of the Month: January 2023

NABI 40-LFW Gen III/CNG 41117

Location: Commerce Street at Akard Street, Dallas, TX
Operator of Vehicle: Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART)
Date of Photo: November 12, 2021

This month marks the one year anniversary of the launch of “DARTZoom”, the Dallas bus network’s redesign.  That redesign, like others in recent years in cities such as Baltimore and Houston, is meant to increase the frequency of service while reducing travel times across the network.  I visited Dallas for the first time in November of 2021, at which time the original bus network was still in place.  One of the first things that becomes apparent very quickly in planning a trip to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is that things are very spread out and many things simply aren’t close enough to transit service to be truly transit accessible.  As a result, Dallas has one of the largest light rail networks in the country by virtue of the area it is trying to serve, even though it isn’t an area that one thinks of as having robust public transit.

Have you been on Dallas’s buses since the network redesign was implemented?

For more photos of DART buses, please click here.  

Bus Photo of the Month: November 2022

MAN 18.310 HCOL-NL 2241

Location: Cais Da Rocha, Lisbon, Portugal
Operator of Vehicle: Carris
Date of Photo: November 15, 2013

For a transit enthusiast, Lisbon is probably best known for its “Remodelado” trams, but the trams aren’t the only thing to see in the Portuguese capital.  Tram Route 15 operates with modern Siemens built trams as it travels along the Tagus Riverfront from central Lisbon to Belem.  And a portion of the route is a pretty impressive transit corridor in and of itself.  The tram tracks serve both routes 15 and 18, and the tram stations on these routes are also shared by conventional bus routes that run along the same section of road.  By essentially treating the tram right-of-way as a full fledged transit way, the buses can operate separate from general purpose traffic.  To the left (from the vantage of this photo) is the Linha de Cascais, a railway line that has the distinction of being the first heavy rail line to be electrified in the entire country.  

For more photos of Lisbon buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: October 2022

Gillig Advantage/BRT 4060

Location: Rockville Pike at Edmonston Drive, Rockville, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Montgomery County 
Date of Photo: October 11, 2017

Today marks the 5th anniversary of the launch of Ride On Extra, a limited stop service operated by Ride On between Lakeforest Mall and Medical Center Metro Station along MD Route 355.  The route, also known as Route 101, only makes 13 stops compared to the 80 stops on underlying local services on routes 46 and 55, significantly cutting travel times along this busy corridor.  The buses also feature onboard WiFi and USB charging ports.  

Service was suspended at various times during the pandemic and my travel patterns haven’t given me occasion to use this route recently, but I found the route to be quite useful when I have been able to use it.  This route is a precursor to bus rapid transit service on this corridor, and like the Route 129, this route will be discontinued when that service begins.  However, with the MD 355 BRT line only in the preliminary engineering stage, it is unlikely that construction will begin prior to the 2025 to 2028 timeframe.  In other words, it looks like Ride On Extra will be celebrating a few more anniversaries before it is replaced by Flash BRT service.

For more photos of Ride On Gillig Advantage buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: September 2022

New Flyer XDE40 7098

Location: 9th Street, NW at Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: April 11, 2011

Beginning with the launch of its first “MetroExtra” route in 2007, WMATA attempted to brand the new service with specially painted buses.  This branding eventually evolved into what are often referred to as the “MetroLocal” and “MetroExtra” schemes where most of the bus is painted silver with the back portion being painted red for local buses and blue for MetroExtra buses.  However, after about 14 years of the current schemes being in use, Metro is repainting all of the MetroExtra buses into the “standard” red Local scheme.  Instead, passengers will need to rely on the destination sign to identify MetroExtra services.

I suspect some of this stems from the fact that blue MetroExtra buses often wound up on local routes and vice versa, and I mentioned this as a reason I tend to dislike branded bus schemes in a post six years ago.  Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of the current Metrobus paint schemes and hope that when the livery is next updated that it is an improvement over the current one.

For more photos of WMATA New Flyer XDE40 buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: August 2022

Orion V 82

Location: National Airport Station, Arlington, VA
Operator of Vehicle: Alexandria Transit Company (DASH)
Date of Photo: June 16, 2019

From the time of its establishment in 1984, DASH in Alexandria, VA has operated buses manufactured by Orion Industries until exactly one month ago.  On July 1 of this year, DASH ran a ceremonial farewell trip to its last Orion built buses, two Orion V units similar to the one in this photo.  Unfortunately, I was not able to attend this event, but from what I’ve seen, DASH made the event a special one.  The headsigns created for the special trips were definitely noteworthy.  In addition to marking the end of the Orion era at DASH, the retirement of the Orion Vs marks the end of high floor bus operations at DASH as the entire fleet is now made up of low floor vehicles.  

Orion ended manufacturing of the Orion V in 2009.  Considering the standard lifespan of a transit bus in North America is typically in the 12 to 15 year range, it is not surprising that the last Orion Vs still standing are gradually being retired now, with only a handful still in operation.  Given that Orion announced on April 25, 2012 that it would no longer take any orders for new buses and that its factories would close when outstanding orders were fulfilled, it should be expected that Orion built buses will no longer be plying the streets of North America within the next few years as the last Orion VIIs built by the company upon its closure are removed from service.

For more photos of DASH buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: June 2022

Flxible Metro-B 9256

Location: K Street, NW at Connecticut Avenue, Washington, DC
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: July 16, 2003

On the occasion of my birthday month, I thought it would be fun to feature a photo of my first “home route.”  As the name implies, a home route is the route that goes by where you live and therefore take at the start or end of most trips.  For many people, their first home route isn’t one they can necessarily choose, as infants or toddlers have no agency in deciding where to live.

I believe that because my parents and I lived next to a bus line and subway station and used transit for much of our local travels rather than driving is a primary reason I am interested in transit.  We frequently took the L2 bus, pictured here, or the Red Line to go to a variety of different places.  I remember the original incarnation of the L4 and have vague memories of an L5 existing before the current (albeit suspended) L1 was introduced.  The L4 has since been discontinued, reinstated, and discontinued again, and the L2’s southern terminal in Downtown Washington and alignment south of Woodley Park has changed considerably in recent years.  However, this was and always will be the first bus route I relied on regularly.

What’s your home route?  Any special stories to share about it?  Share your answers in the comments!

For more photos of WMATA Flxible Metro-B buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: May 2022

Orion V/CNG 5997

Location: Shady Grove Station, Derwood, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Ride On Montgomery County Transit
Date of Photo: March 20, 2009

Earlier this week, I saw some photos posted on social media of Ride On’s new electric buses, manufactured by Gillig.  My understanding is that the buses have been delivered to Ride On but have not yet entered service.  The order, placed in 2021, consists of ten buses that will operate out of the Silver Spring garage.  These ten buses will join four Proterras that have been in service since the fall of 2020.  

Back in 1996, Ride On ordered its first compressed natural gas buses.  These three buses originally featured a green and white livery with a cloud imagery wrap on the windows.  They were later repainted to match the scheme on the 40 foot CNG buses that were delivered in 1999.  While these buses are no longer in service, Ride On has almost exclusively ordered CNG buses for its Gaithersburg Garage since taking delivery of these buses over 20 years ago.

For more photos of Ride On 35 foot Orion V/CNG buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: April 2022

Mercedez-Benz OH 1718L-SB

Location: Avenida 9 de Julio at Vilamonte, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Operator of Vehicle: Micro Ómnibus 45 S.A.
Date of Photo: January 10, 2018

Your eyes are not deceiving you and this isn’t some kind of April Fool’s joke.  This is a bus with “left hand drive” operating in a country where vehicles drive on the right side of the road.  But what is that bus going in the opposite direction doing to the left of the approaching bus (from my angle as the photographer)?  

These buses are traveling along Avenida 9 de Julio, which is considered to be the widest street in the world according to Guinness World Records.  It is about 361 feet (110 meters) wide, with seven general purpose lanes in each direction flanked by a separate two lane street on each side and four bus lanes (two for each direction) in the middle.  The result is a street wider than a typical Manhattan city block that takes several light cycles to cross in its entirety as a pedestrian.

In 2013, the busway, formally known as the Metrobus 9 de Julio line opened.  Unlike the city’s other Metrobus routes, the Avenida 9 de Julio route was constructed with island platforms for its stations rather than side platforms.  This is what necessitates the buses to run on the “wrong” side of the street, as the buses need to be positioned so that the doors on the right side of the vehicle open on to the platforms.  In addition, due to the high volume of bus traffic in the busway, each direction has two lanes so that buses loading passengers can be overtaken by other buses.  Pavement markings indicate where each route is supposed to stop for the benefit of bus drivers and also help to facilitate vehicular movements as buses pull in to and pull away from the platforms.  It is an impressive sight to take in.

For more photos of Metrobus 9 de Julio, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: March 2022

LAZ 52522 044

Location: Universytetska Street at Sichovykh Striltsiv Street, Lviv, Ukraine
Operator of Vehicle: LKP Lvivelektrotrans
Date of Photo: May 31, 2008

As a followup to yesterday’s post, here is a photo of one of Lviv’s trolleybuses.  The idea of a trolleybus system for the city was first proposed in 1909, but it wasn’t until November 27, 1952 that trolleybuses began operating.  Over the years, nearly 75 miles (120 kilometers) of catenary has been strung and there are over 100 buses in the city’s trolleybus fleet.  

Many of Lviv’s trolleybuses were built by the Lviv Bus Factory under the LAZ brandname.  LAZ was one of the major bus manufacturers of the Soviet Union and was the largest ever industrial company to be located in Lviv.  The company started in 1945 but faced financial difficulties following the collapse of the USSR.  Later engulfed in scandals, the company was seized by the government in 2014 and the site of its factory was put up for auction. 

For more photos of Lviv’s trolleybuses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: February 2022

New Flyer D60LFR 3314

Location: Forbes Avenue at Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: November 27, 2015