CyRide Receives Double Long Bending Buses

Double-long CyRide buses with accordion like midsections will soon be bending around Ames street corners.

The articulated buses are in CyRide's parking lot now and will be put into use on the Orange Route in several weeks after they are outfitted with CyRide features and drivers receive proper training.

The buses are so long that they bend in the middle, hence the black, folding accordion-like sections.

The 62-foot long buses can carry more than 100 passengers. Two of the extra long buses provide the same capacity as three standard buses, said Sheri Kyras, CyRide transit director.

Consultants recommended the purchase in 2007 after studying ways to increase CyRide capacity. The orange route is the busiest in the state, Kyras said.

The route connects the Veterinary Medicine College, the commuter parking lots around Jack Trice Stadium, student residence halls and ISU Campus.

Each articulated bus cost about $687,000, but federal grants covered 90 percent of the purchase.

When CyRide officials applied for the grant in 2010, the average age of the fleet was 11.2 years compared to the national average of 6.7 years, said Shari Atwood, a CyRide transit planner.

And Atwood said that the fleet's age was calculated immediately after the bus system had received 12 new hybrid buses. The longer buses will allow two 15-year-old, 35-foot buses and one 40-foot bus to retire from the CyRide fleet.

CyRide will also purchase six additional 40-foot buses --- three in the fiscal year 2013 and three more in the fiscal year 2014 --- with grants that typically fund 83 percent of bus purchases.

Some have said that funds for new buses should have gone toward keeping fares low, however all bus purchases were grant funded and Kyras said those capital funds cannot be shifted to operating costs.

Once the new articulated busses are in use, CyRide will study how they improve service on the route and how many the service should have in its fleet.

But the challenge will be how to pay for any new articulated buses or any new buses at all.

The new transportation bill cut Iowa's pot of federal money for items such as bus purchases from millions to just $1.5 million a year, Kyras said.

“All the funding sources have gone away,” she said.

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