BusTalk

[Mr. Linsky]

As seen in The New York Times today;

For decades, they were a fixture of New York life: double-decker buses swaying along Fifth Avenue. They disappeared in 1953 and made a brief and ill-fated return in the 1970s. But now they may be ready for a third act.

Howard H. Roberts Jr., the president of New York City Transit, said on Thursday that he is considering bringing the two-level buses back to Fifth Avenue.

Mr. Roberts said his interest was based on simple economics. Double-deckers can carry about as many people as the longer bus that the transit agency now uses, according to Joseph Smith, senior vice president for the agency’s bus operations. But they cost less to maintain because they lack the complicated connector and accordion apparatus that links the two portions of an articulated bus.

Those who rode the double-deckers in their heyday have fond memories.

“Back in the days when money was important, it was great to take a date out and you could have a nice ride up and a nice ride back on a summer evening,” said William J. Ronan, 95, who first rode the buses when he came to New York during his student days in the 1930s (three decades later, he became the first chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority).

“It was sort of a genteel way to travel and perfectly respectable,” he said. “Between that and the Staten Island Ferry you could have a wonderful date.”

Mr. Ronan said the seats in front on the upper deck were considered the best ones. “You tried to get up in the front seats, which were great because you had the view up the avenue,” he said.

Mr. Smith said that he was looking at buses made by three manufacturers but that it was too early to say when, or even with certainty if, double-deckers would be brought to New York for test runs.

Double-decker buses were operated by the Fifth Avenue Coach Company starting at least in the early part of the last century. The company used both open-top buses — the ones that Mr. Ronan remembered so fondly and similar to those used today for sightseeing — and fully enclosed double-deckers. The transit agency is looking to bring back only the enclosed models.

“The Fifth Avenue Coach was always a premium service,” said Charles F. Seaton, a transit spokesman. “When other buses were a nickel, the Fifth Avenue Coach was a dime. And their buses were pretty much viewed as a grand way to travel.”

The company stopped running its open-top buses in 1946, while the enclosed double-deckers made their last run in 1953, according to news articles.

Mr. Ronan tried to bring the double-decker buses back in 1976, when the transportation authority bought eight of them from a British company to be used in a pilot program. Mr. Seaton said the buses had mechanical problems and were off the road after about two years.

But there were other problems, including on the continuation of some Fifth Avenue routes where the buses travel along Riverside Drive.

“The problem then was all the trees along Riverside Drive had grown such that the branches were in the way of the bus,” said Robert A. Olmsted, who worked at the authority with Mr. Ronan. If the buses are brought back, he said, “they’d have to do some clearance runs and trim some trees, which may upset some people, too.”

Walking downtown on Thursday, John Perchinski, 65, recalled riding on the upper decks of the buses as a child. “It was a really comfortable ride,” he said.

An article in The New York Times in 1942, when the coach company was threatening to stop using the double-decker buses, offered a panegyric to their charms.

“The young and ardent New Yorker brought his girl to the top deck of a Fifth Avenue bus and together they sailed into the fabulous land of the shop windows,” the article said. “The New Yorker grown old and a bit philosophical found these lofty seats, moving sedately up the Avenue, ideal places from which to watch the passing show of the pavements.”

C.J. Hughes contributed reporting.

Note; the top photo, which may not have been seen since the early fifties, is an 'Omnibus Corporation' potpourri including a number of Yellow 735 (Queen Marys), a TD 4506, a TDH 4509 and a couple of Macks thrown in - really a great photo!

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, NY

[Q65A]

Nice article, Mr. L (plus some great pix)!
I suppose that double deckers have a much smaller "street footprint" as compared to artics, so they can use short bus stops.
I would imagine that ADA-compliant double deckers would need low floors and WC ramps, with wheelchair seating on the lower level.
I remember seeing those Leyland Atlanteans in service in the late 1970's.
Painted in two-tone MTA blue complete with "M Surface" decals, I'd watch them working the M4 at 60th St. & 5th Avenue. They were compact buses with relatively short wheelbases: they would bob up and down as they worked their way southbound on the rough surface of the 5th Avenue bus lane. Their diesels must have been 4-strokers; they sounded very different from typical buses of the day (which all had 2-stroke Detroits).

[Q65A]

The top-most photo posted by Mr. L is a bus historian's treat.
Check out that lineup of vintage buses (which appears to be located directly in front of the Main Library on 5th Avenue between 41 & 42nd Sts., where there still are busy bus stops to this day):
1.) The lead unit is FACCO 2098, which probably is a 1938 Yellow Model 735 ("Queen Mary").
2.) Second in line is a 35' paired-window GM Old Look (probably a FACCO TDH-4509).
3.) Third in line is a postwar 40' Mack (possibly a FACCO C-50DT, which regularly operated on FACCO's Route 15 from Madison Square Park and Jackson Heights, Queens).
4.) Bringing up the rear is a GM TD-4506 (note the rooftop "ears" and lack of Thermomatic vent).
5.) In the background (and headed northbound on 5th Avenue, which is something that you cannot do today) appear to be another GM Old Look plus some flat roof Yellow Model 720 double deckers (also for FACCO's Route 15 to Jackson Heights).

[Mr. Linsky]

Bob,

When you stop to think about it, the 735 pictured above (top) was probably the first genuine 'low floor' bus ever built - I mean, you can't get much lower than that!

That smaller footprint that you mention would most certainly help to reduce traffic volume just as the elimination of the seven passenger cabs did in the early sixties - it's a drop in the bucket but every little bit helps.

While we're on the subject of Manhattan traffic; In Mayor Bloomberg's 'congestion pricing' plan for certain hours in midtown, I can understand automatic billing of a driver's EZPass account but how was he going to impose the surcharges on those vehicles without the electronic I.D.?

If it was his plan to have toll booths anywhere - forget it! - that would have made matters even worse!

Mr.Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, NY

[Mr. Linsky]

[Q65A]

[Mr. Linsky]

Bob,

I don't remember whether we rode the closed FACCO DD's when we were kids but we sure enjoyed the upper decks of the open top jobs during the summer all the way to 168th. Street and back to midtown.

I think they were the Yellow Z's from the early thirties (lower photo above) because I don't think there were any open topped 720/735 models (although I stand corrected on that point).

There were two surviving later Queen Mary types that I knew of on Long Islands years ago.

The Southampton Automotive Museum had one but they closed down some time in the sixties or so and I never knew what happened to that bus unless it's now either part of the MTA vintage fleet or in Las Vegas (as was a rumor at the time).

The other was a rusted derelict that stood in a vacant field just off route 110 south of the parkways (I don't know what happened to that one either!).

The DD's were a lot of fun and were an interesting facit of New York City life!

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, NY