[quote=Andros 1337;11290744]
Quote:
Originally Posted by abgofet
Interesting point, although it seems to leave out one fact: ABQ RIDE has signed a contract for 94 options with New Flyer for 60-foot articulated hybrid buses. This contract was signed when ABQ RIDE ordered the 6900-series New Flyer DE40LFR buses. 25 of those options have been piggybacked on by MBTA Bus in Boston. ABQ RIDE can of course exercise some of these options into orders, so I would probably say the earliest ABQ RIDE can get the buses into service would be either in December 2010 or January 2011.
In addition, ABQ RIDE has signed options with New Flyer for 68 40-foot hybrid buses. When ABQ RIDE decides to replace the 300-series buses, I am guessing ABQ RIDE will exercise some of these options.
Now, what I am really curious about is what will ABQ RIDE order to replace the remaining 400-series buses when the time comes. ABQ RIDE's contract with New Flyer is only valid for 40-foot and 60-foot buses. There will definately be a need for some smaller buses on certain routes such as the D-RIDE and the 51 Atrisco/Rio Bravo. In addition to New Flyer, some other options might be Gillig, NABI, Orion, and ElDorado.
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Andros...
The earliest they could use any of these 92 New Flyer options would be July 2010 when the grant funding becomes available. Add to this the time it takes to put one of these options into affect, and the turnaround time it will take New Flyer to actually build and deliver these buses (so far the average has been 9 months), and the additional time it takes to install and configure the AVL, GPS, WIFI and GFI computer hardware systems on each of these buses... you are still looking on the outside of 1 year from purchase date (July 2011) befor any of these buses actually hit the road.
Personally, from experience, I believe this timetable to be overly optimistic (but not impossible).