Bus Photo of the Month: March 2021

Gillig Advantage Trolley Replica 922Gillig Advantage Trolley Replica 922

Location: Central Avenue at 6th Street, Saint Petersburg, FL
Operator of Vehicle: Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority
Date of Photo: March 13, 2019

Yesterday, I wrote about advertising wraps on transit vehicles and how reactions to them in the transit enthusiast community can be mixed.  If there is one topic on which there is a certain amount of consensus, it is the general derision for buses that are made to look like trollies.  While there may be a certain aesthetic charm and appeal to the population at large with these vehicle designs, transit fans tend to prefer authentic trollies, streetcars, and trams over buses such as these.  The bus featured here is manufactured by Gillig.  Basically, Gillig offers a version of its standard Advantage low floor bus that is “[o]utfitted with solid oak seats, “brass” stanchions, cupola lighting, and cow catcher.”  Agencies that purchase these trolley replicas generally operate them on tourist oriented services.  In PSTA’s case, they advertise four “trolley routes” on their website where these vehicles can be found.

What do you think of trolley replica buses?

For more photos of Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: July 2020

Gillig Advantage 59096

Gillig Advantage 59096

Location: Downtown Sarasota Transfer Station, Sarasota, FL
Operator of Vehicle: Manatee County Area Transit (MCAT)
Date of Photo: March 15, 2019

Usually bus routes are operated by a single agency, for as one can imagine, coordinating service across multiple agencies is potentially quite challenging.  As it is, even within a single agency, the overwhelming majority of agencies often avoid splitting the operation of a single route among different garages when possible.  And the other split agency operation that I can think of (routes 400 and 402 connecting Jerusalem and Bnei Brak in Israel) was changed to have a single operator for each route in order to simplify the service.  Yet the bus route connecting Sarasota and Bradenton, one of the busiest transit lines on the Florida Suncoast, is a split operation between Manatee County Area Transit (MCAT) and Sarasota County Area Transit (SCAT).  In preparing the new Tampa Bay & Florida Suncoast section, I was unable to find any explanation for how this split operation came to be or any other historical information, though I did find proposed plans to have MCAT operate the entire route on its own.  

Do you know how this split operation on the 99 between Sarasota and Bradenton came about?  Can you think of another example of a route operated by multiple agencies like this?  If so, please leave a comment below, as I (and I’m sure others) would love to learn more about these unique operations.

For more photos of Manatee County Area Transit (MCAT) buses, please click here.