Hmm, outside of the box thinking on 24 hour "subway" service -- updated

The Van Hool AGG300 bus is sold in the U.S. by the ABC Companies.

WMATA General Manager John Catoe suggests that maintenance demands, and a relative dearth of customers late Friday and Saturday nights leads to the thought that the late night subway service--till 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights--be discontinued in favor of bus service. See "Night Owls May Need A New Way Home," subtitled "Metro Could Replace Wee-Hour Weekend Trains With Buses,"from the Post, although I think this was first reported in the Examiner.

I wrote about this a couple weeks ago, and I wasn't in favor.

But, today I am thinking a little differently about it.

Maybe WMATA could offer bus service along the subway routes, as Mr. Catoe suggests, but not just between 12 a.m. to 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, but on other nights of the week.

Perhaps this map could double as a late night bus service map...

Perhaps such service could be offered during all of the hours that the WMATA subway system does not operate.

Service could be performed with special, higher capacity buses, such as the 80' AGG300 articulated bus from Van Hool or the Enviro 600 double-decker bus. The articulated bus can fit as much as one subway car's worth of passengers, and just under for the double decker bus.

The advantage of the latter bus is that it is 40 feet long and has between 80-90 seats. The former bus is longer, therefore a little more unwieldy to drive, and has only 65 seats.

Victoria BC Transit, Enviro 500 double decker bus. Photo copyright Bill Wong, BC Transit Photo Gallery. Van Hool also sells double decker buses.


Van Hool AGG300 in Geneva. Photo from Transports Publics Geneva..

I forgot to mention that the service needs to be promoted in a special manner, and the buses need to look really great--not as if they are designed by people who work for the government, but by people skilled in graphic design and marketing.

For example, the Metro Extra service is a good thing, but the graphic design of the buses is pretty ordinary and boring, when marketing "science" can be fun and exciting...


Something like the a "Move" or "Go" bus from Pittsburgh, or signage like the Tehachapi circulator...

Pittsburgh



Not this


Note: After writing this I spoke with Hugh McIlvaney from the ABC Companies, and he told me that current federal regulations do not allow the AGG300 to be driven on public streets because of its length--although it is in use in other countries, and in the U.S. on privately owned campuses, such as Disneyland.

We agreed that the doubledecker bus has "legs" for public transit...