Orion V 2197

Location: 20th Street, NW at Q Street, Washington, DC
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: December 5, 2017

A video circulating on YouTube in recent days commented on the homogeneity of WMATA’s bus fleet.  As is frequently the case with such videos, there isn’t much historical context to the claims made in the video, especially if the content creator only recently came to the area in question.  As someone who has spent most of his life in the DC area, I can recall several instances where it seemed the Metrobus fleet was about to be dominated by a single vehicle type, and then something else was ordered to maintain the variety of the fleet.  Even if the purpose of the “different” order wasn’t explicitly to maintain fleet variety, that was the effective outcome.  Admittedly, consolidation among bus manufacturing industry makes it more likely that a single manufacturer would come to dominate a city’s fleet, even for an agency as large as WMATA.  

In short, I can recall when it felt as if the WMATA fleet was on its way to becoming an all Orion fleet, with models such as the Orion V pictured here being a common sight.  Before that, I recall when Flxible was the most common bus on the streets of the nation’s capital.  The point is manufacturers come and go, bus models change and evolve, and the needs of transit agencies change over time.  Just because WMATA’s fleet is nearly exclusively New Flyers at this point doesn’t mean that it will remain that way forever, or that New Flyer is the only manufacturer WMATA is able to order from.  Transit fans with preconceived notions about how things work are usually surprised later.

For more photos of the WMATA Orion Vs, please click here.