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Bus stop
(by Jenny Fisher - March 03, 2010)
With Blueberry Hill, the Moonrise Hotel and The Pageant under his belt, Joe Edwards may be the Loop’s visionary. But when it comes to transporting tourists on Delmar Boulevard, a group of middle school students is giving him a run for his money.
The 10 members of the Brittany Woods Middle School Robotics Team, known as the Soaring Eagles, have been working hard since last fall to bring a double-decker bus to the Loop.
On an unusually sunny February weekend, their plans came to fruition when British bus and coach manufacturer Alexander Dennis provided a demonstration bus that was parked in front of Fitz’s for the weekend — cattycorner to the authentic 1920s trolley installed by the Edwards-led Loop Trolley Company as an example of what might run on a Loop trolley line.
With a little help from the warm weather and an animated saxophone player on the corner, the bus drew a lot of interest. Three members of the team eagerly explained their project to passersby and gave tours of the red-and-gray-painted bus, pointing out its two levels, 70 seats, handicap accommodations, handholds for standing passengers and upper-deck view.
As part of their participation in FIRST Lego League — a science and technology program for kids where teams of students build and program robots, then pit their robot’s capabilities against one another at competitions — the Soaring Eagles also had to propose a solution for a real-world transportation problem in their community. The group decided to look at the Loop as their community and congestion as the problem.
“We thought a double-decker bus is a smart move because not only does it cut down on pollution and congestion but it brings tourists to the Loop,” said robotics team member Jahmahl Jennings, who is in eighth grade.
The group initially considered a trolley as a solution, a la Joe Edwards, but nixed the idea because they thought it would involve too much construction. As they saw it, a tourist bus could start running almost as soon as it was approved and funded, whereas a trolley would likely involve the installation of overhead lines and digging on one side of Delmar Boulevard.
“That’s a big obstacle with the trolley,” said team member and seventh-grader Marquel Rogers.
In addition to presenting their ideas to the city council three times over the past several months and meeting with Edwards, who has said he thought a trolley and double-decker bus could coexist, the group of teens also met with Metro. They suggested that a double-decker bus in the Loop could be part of a Metro expansion if taxpayers approve the proposed sales tax increase for public transportation that’s on the April ballot. A Metro representative came out for the bus demonstration as well, at the request of the students.
In addition to Joe Edwards, Fitz’s owner Bob Gunthner also said he was supportive. When city manager Julie Feier brought up the idea of a double-decker bus pilot to local business owners, Gunthner said he immediately volunteered.
“I thought it sounded like a really good project, and they’re middle school kids trying to do something to help the community,” Gunthner said. He was out early on Feb. 21 to take a tour of the bus.
According to driver Raymond Young, it was the first time a group of kids had hosted an event with the demonstration bus. Young has been driving it since 2007, when it first arrived in the U.S. The largest fleet of Alexander Dennis buses in the U.S., at about 130, is in Las Vegas, Young said, although the company’s double-decker buses also run in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
A basic model — like the “Enviro500” bus on display in the Loop — starts at about $75,000, Young said, and can reach about $1 million depending on amenities. The buses are available in a hybrid version, which starts at about $1 million. The hybrid runs on a battery at speeds below 15 to 20 miles per hour, Young said, and above those speeds the diesel engine comes on. For a run like the Loop, Young pointed out, the bus would probably not exceed 20 miles per hour very often.
As part of their proposal, the middle school robotics team projected costs and revenue for a hypothetical Loop double-decker bus. They based their numbers on a trolley feasibility study done by Joe Edwards, which estimated that about 2,000 people would ride a Loop trolley per day for a total of 750,000 riders per year. Based on those numbers, the middle school students believe a bus would generate substantial profits after the startup cost of buying the actual vehicle if the cost of a trip was $3 or $1.50 for disabled riders.
The Brittany Woods Middle School Robotics Team is led by Barry Williams, who also teaches eighth grade physical science at the school. He founded the group last year with the hope that it would get students excited about a unit he teaches on energy, machines and motion.
“It was one of the best things I ever did,” Williams said. “You see how excited they are. It changed the whole face of our classroom.”
The team won second place for research quality at the Eastern Missouri State Championship Jan. 9. Their next event is the Missouri METS Week Robotics Competition in Jefferson City on March 4. Along with the robotics competition, the team will also bring their posters and display materials to set up in the Capitol rotunda, where lawmakers, they hope, will take a look.
When it comes to lawmakers, the Brittany Woods students have at least one local government on board. The University City Council has expressed its support of the project. But the team would still need funding, which they hope could come from Metro.
Asked whether he thought their double-decker bus proposal would ever become reality, eighth-grader and robotics team member Devin Rankin-Wilson said, “It will happen.” Then he led another visitor on the grand tour.
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