New Bus Model Serving B36 Passengers

Have you seen or ridden on this bus yet?

It’s  a new Nova bus made in upstate New York recently making it’s debut at  Ulmer Park Depot. That’s the home of routes such as the B1, B3, B6, and  B36. Luckily, only 90 have been ordered, at a cost of $45 million, because  they have been criticized for having very little leg room and headroom,  as well as only 34 seats. Other low floor buses have 36 seats and high  floor models have 39 seats. When I was a kid, the standard was 53 seats.  The NY Post has the complete story.

As  a side note, in 1981 the MTA rejected two Japanese buses on loan for  several weeks because of inadequate leg and headroom throughout.  Today,  the test is for 90 buses and they are not on loan. Apparently, today  passenger comfort is less of a requirement and there were probably no  focus groups. Most likely other concerns such as cost take a higher  priority. Decisions by the MTA such as this prove once again that bus  passengers don’t matter. Subway cars with a headroom of only slightly  more than five feet at the ends of the cars would never have been  ordered.