Recently I was very much struck, by discussions at Seattle Transit Blog and Publicola by the fact that nobody deemed to realize the Number 7 bus might be a candidate for extinction, at least as an electric trolley line.
Everything we know points to the fact that the #7, and probably the other trolley routes, might dieselized in just a few years. The #7 stands out as being a route in a historically underserved part of town that parallels the LINK. It seems obvious from numerous comments that Metro is taking a ‘hands off’ approach to problems on the buses there, allowing problems to fester.
But there are other factors involved. The electric trolleys are ‘different’ from the other Metro buses and, organizationally, that’s never a good thing in a large agency. Management cannot help but think that the expenses of the electric overhead are unique to the electric lines, that the electric buses can’t be used on non-electric routes, and, perhaps most galling, that the people who keep the electric buses running have special skills that make them hard to replace, which is to say, in the language of the American workplace, hard to bully.
It’s no secret that the electric buses are in danger. Metro hasn’t ordered any new ones, and, when asked about this recently, Kurt Triplett said he�s �not proposing to make that switch� and that we have �3 years to make that decision� because the current trolleys have that much life left. Let me translate that for you- they’re not planning to buy new low-floor electric buses, and about three years from now they will announce that, because they’ve made no efforts to maintain the service, the ETBs will be discontinued and replaced by diesels.
Be assured, if Metro was going to buy new ETBs and keep the service running, they would be working on it now.
And what is the response in the ‘transit community’? Well, so far, there is none. In fact, if those buses had to run on the amount of interest the transit community has shown for them, they’d all be parked and waiting for a tow truck. I’ve seen no recognition that the overhead wire and the substations supplying the juice are either a great investment, or an unbearable expense, depending on how they’re managed.
The original interurban to Tacoma ran out Rainier Avenue S., and small communities on the route were eventually swallowed, and then for decades neglected, by the City of Seattle. It would be appropriate for Metro to make the #7 one of the best routes in the city, both as restitution, and recognition that this part of Seattle will see the most growth and improvement in the future (because they’re starting from so far behind, well, duh!). What seems more likely to happen, though, is that the #7 will be the first route to lose the wire, “because it parallels an existing service”.
Don’t let bad things happen to good buses.
isn’t the power line sound transit put in up the west side of beacon hill (which got all the recent complaints), among other things, supposedly for etb’s on the hill?
If it is the one between Beacon Ave and MLK Jr. Way on Othello, then yes. That is to bring the 36 down to Othello Station. The same is being done with the 14 in Mt. Baker.
The only way King County Metro and the County Government can put fears of dropping the trolleybuses to rest is order more of them. Seattle Transit made a big mistake in 1963 cutting trolley routes to expand into the newly annexed areas North of 85th Street, and now Metro is going to do the same to expand service in the suburbs. Trolleybuses last a long time, the 4100s are still relatively new compared to both the buses they replaced, and the ones their predecessors replaced. The 900s were 20+ years old, the remaining Seattle Transit Trolleys were going on 40 when Metro retired them.
Evergreen, I for one would appreciate if you could do a post, or some posts, reviewing the ETBs and the routes and their history, and I’m sure you’d be welcome to post here. It would be interesting to know the classes of ETBs, when and how many were purchased, and when the routes have been cut back or expanded. I wonder if anyone has written a book or articles about the ETBs in Seattle?
Pretty please with cream and sugar on top?
Here are some resources I have found over the years. This was from MEHVA on the 60th Anniversary of the Trackless Trolleys in Seattle, that was 9 years ago.
http://www.mehva.org/bus1008.html
http://www.mehva.org/60years.html
A list of the old trolleybus routes, and abandonment dates.
http://www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/link/Seattle.former.rtes.htm
This was from 1941, as the streetcar network was converted to Trolleybuses, and they were down to just one or two routes.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3215/2907931714_a9cab8fcb4.jpg
This is the streetcar network in Seattle as of 1933.
http://www.oddmart.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/municipal-street-railway-track-map-1260.png
1963 Overhead Wire Maps
http://www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/link/Seattle.1963.OH.N.JPG
http://www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/link/Seattle.1963.OH.S.JPG
I appreciate this article and the concern that it shows for the ETB’s. However, there is little actual information in this post. Instead, there is rumor and conjecture and no hard facts.
To play devil’s advocate, Metro already is maintaining overhead electric systems with regards to the Seattle Streetcar. This, as we all know, is not going away anytime soon. Instead, it will be expanding. I cannot see the city of Seattle taking on that responsibility rather than continue to farm it out to Metro.
Second, ETB’s do last a long time. In fact, transit buses do last a long time as shown by the fact that many 20 plus year old buses are still in operation in many cities around the country. The new order for 93 buses to replace Metro diesel buses was just announced and will take 2 years to fulfill the order.
Third, Metro already deals with different sub-fleets. For example, we have the basic 40-ft bus versus 60-ft articulated bus. Then, within the articulated, you have the hybrid powered, tunnel-capable buses versus the diesel coaches. On top of that, you add the ETB. While I am sure that the fleet managers would love to have a simple hybrid fleet of 40-ft and 60-ft coaches, it likely isn’t going to happen any time soon.
All that being said, I appreciate you looking out for the ETB’s. Maybe, Seattle needs an initiative to keep the ETB’s from being eliminated.
If a fleet manager at Metro wants to know how to manage a diverse fleet, should send them North to Vancouver and find out how Translink does it. While Edmonton was going year to year on the future of their trolley fleet and then decided to get rid of them, Translink ordered a new fleet to replace the ageing ones. Both Edmonton Transit and King County Metro missed out on a chance for a joint order. Probably because they felt it would lock them in for another 20 years. Diesel Prices are going back up, just like Gas Prices. It would be good for Metro to have something that does not burn diesel on hand.
Apart from COMET, there was not much opposition to Seattle Transit abandoning the bulk of the trolleybus network in 1963. Seattle Transit was governed by a quasi-independent commission. They did try twice to reverse the bad decision via initiative, but failed. THe immediate result from the dieselization was going from profit to deficit. There was a reason Seattle City Light’s early superintendent, James D. Ross had an aversion to the steam power plants of the day. With all the hydropower potential, why invest in power plants that you have to buy fuel for, when water was free? Even if SCL provides Metro with power at cost(utility rates in the state cannot be below cost), it is still cheaper than Diesel that is up to $4-$5 per gallon at times. Fuel Hedging is a bet that can backfire.
Exactly so- my purpose with this post was not to provide facts, but to point to dynamics of organizations and Seattle’s situation that are slanted against the ETB.
I appreciate when others can add information. Reading the links provided by Evergreenrailfan I learned I was wrong in supposing the 1963 initiative had passed, and also learned that a promise was made in about 1972, when KC Metro was created. that the overhead wire would be replaced and maintained.
What Seattle needs, and I’m hoping will get from the transit community, is a realization that the ETBs are important way out of proportion to their current numbers. They run on clean electrical power we can make inside our own borders and transport to the point of use over wires.
And, most importantly, I don’t want to see Seattle blindsided by decisions that never got properly discussed.
To try to be a little clearer, I’m perfectly sure that the managers and workers at KC Metro keep all the buses in great condition, and the agency does a great job of keeping everything running on time.
I was referring to the dynamics of organizations, which are different from the people they’re made of. Successful organizations need to establish their own corporate values to withstand the ‘natural’ dynamics of organizations over time. (Corporate, from the Latin corpus, ‘body’.)
In the case of the ETB, an example of a corporate value would be if, in response to criticism of the expense of the electrical overhead, the agency responds that the expense is justified by benefits that aren’t shown on the balance sheet, or insists on those benefits being shown. For example, homes on ETB lines are worth more, and pay more taxes, because the buses are quieter. Stuff that’s hard to quantify.
It’s not the people involved I worry about, just the organizational dynamics.
Also, in 1972, the balance of population in the county was still up in the air. The Suburbs were growing, but had not totally surpassed Seattle. When the King County Council came up with the 40/40/20 rule this decade, then County Councilmember Rob McKenna practically told Seattle their days of dominance were over in regional forums. Probably why he was so opposed to Light Rail, Seattle will have the bulk of the mileage to begin with, might get more people to move in.
A few years ago, I read an interesting book called “10 ways to repair American Democracy”(Don’t have the exact title with me right now), and it had a chapter on Smart Government(Not big or small, just doing it right), and had an interesting idea that is done in Europe, when Government does something right, brag about it. The way Metro could do it, is use the buses advertising boards to advertise the benefits of a trolleybus. That is one thing they do in Salzburg, Austria.
http://www.tbus.org.uk/news2005.htm
Another benefit, is often with electric routes, fewer vehicles are needed to operate than diesels. I doubt Metro could operate the 7′s schedule with Diesels only. Standardization has gotten way out of hand at Metro as it is. The DE60LFs have some faults, I think the seat clutter was discussed before here. These buses seem to have been designed for suburban commuting, at least the Bredas when they were converted, they seemed to have removed a few seats to get some more leg room in there, and they seem to be a little more suited to city operation now, although the roominess they seem to have over the buses that replaced them on tunnel routes, is probably because they were too wide for the road to begin with.
McGinn has a new “Ideas for Seattle” website. Surely Mallahan will at least look at it. One of the top suggestions is “an upgraded, rebranded trollybus system“. Go vote for it.
And while you’re at it, vote for mine: “Requirement for high-density family housing.”
Done. I also created an idea to add more bus-only lanes.