Your city's bus livery

ThreeHundred · #1 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 7:06 PM**

Simple. What do your buses look like?

Los Angeles Local

^ This one has got that gangsta lean.

Metro Library and Archive

Los Angeles Rapid

Metro Library and Archive

Los Angeles Express

Metro Library and Archive

Orange Line

Metro Library and Archive

Torrance Transit

Metro Library and Archive

Pasadena Arts

Metro Library and Archive

Culver City Bus

Metro Library and Archive

Glendale Bee Line

Metro Library and Archive

FREKI · #2 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 7:55 PM**

Copenhagen buses:

Inside

Habour bus

staff · #3 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 8:09 PM**

What is it with American buses looking like they're straight out of the 70s?

arkhitektor · #4 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 8:30 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by staff

What is it with American buses looking like they're straight out of the 70s?

Many of them are.

arkhitektor · #5 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 8:54 PM**

UTA (Utah Transit Authority) busses (Salt Lake City):

Busses on local routes and ski busses use this livery:

There are still a number of older busses in the old livery around though:

The new MAX BRT line has this livery on Van Hool busses:
(This must just be a shot taken for PR because the MAX 35 (BRT) route goes nowhere near Temple Square.)

UTA's Express busses are more motorcoach than city bus, and they are dressed like this:

Even though this thread is for busses, I'm going to cheat and share UTA's train livery as well:

TRAX Light rail has a terrible old livery to match how old and boxy the cars themselves look:

FrontRunner commuter rail has a much fresher look that matches the new bus liveries:

BTinSF · #6 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 8:59 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by staff

What is it with American buses looking like they're straight out of the 70s?

70's design is "in" now.

Anyway:

The "Connected Bus" (free Wi-Fi access, touch-screen maps on the walls and connecting transit information)

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../BA0LV60MP.DTL

Regular old Muni

Source: http://flickr.com/photos/aquanorak/3...n/photostream/

staff · #7 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 8:45 PM**

But the same design "language" is used for new models too it seems. See this one for example, hardly from the 70s, but the window frames, back lights etc. make it look really dated.

BTinSF · #8 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 9:04 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by staff

the window frames, back lights etc. make it look really dated.

Some of it may be various safety regulations. The window frames, for example, are mostly rubber gaskets that can be peeled away for emergency exit. The lights I suspect are a maintenance thing--uniform, cheap, easily replaced. US city busses live hard lives. Everything about them needs to be easily and cheaply maintained.

Also, dated is in the eye of the beholder. Frankly, they don't look dated to me in the sense that they don't look like the actual busses we had in the 70s (more glass, boxier, easier access now--there is actually more emphasis on practicality now and less on appearance).

Cirrus · #9 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 9:25 PM**

In the Washington, DC area:

Most DC Metrobuses look more or less like this. There are a lot of minor variations, but the white background with two red stripes is the basic livery. It is inspired by DC's flag.

Here's another version that illustrates how some of the different trunk routes have slightly different
paint schemes. Compare the top of this bus with the top of the first one.

Metrobus also has a lot of buses wrapped in this "go green" livery, to advertise transit's environmental friendliness.

The most recent order of buses has a new livery, which looks like this:

(Photo by Richard Layman)

MetroExtra, Metrobuses version of limited stop service (similar to the Metro Rapid in LA) looks like this:

(Photo by Rob Goodspeed.)

The DC Circulator runs on some key routes in central Washington. When DC's streetcars start running, they will have a similar paint scheme.

Arlington County's ART service:

Fairfax County Connector, sometimes called the ketchup and mustard bus:

Montgomery County Ride-On. There's also a green version:

There are bunch of smaller agencies, but those are the main ones.

Cirrus · #10 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 9:28 PM**

Boulder puts a unique livery on all its trunk routes. Here are a few of them:

In addition the SKIP, JUMP, HOP and BOLT (pictured), there are also routes called the LEAP, BOUND, DASH and STAMPEDE.

VivaLFuego · #11 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 9:57 PM**

At one time, Chicago's livery consisted of Mercury Green, Croydon Cream, and Swamp Holley Orange.

I guess it was too interesting, since now we're Red, White, & Blue.

Cirrus · #12 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 10:00 PM**

Here is the Bolt, my favorite of the many intercity bus operators along the American East Coast. $35 round trip between DC and NY.

(Photo from wiki)

Megabus is also very popular, though I like Bolt better.

(Photo by The New York City Traveler.)

The famous Chinatown buses tend to just be plain white.

vid · #13 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 10:20 PM**

Old livery:

New livery:

I prefer the old one. The new one is pretty messed up. It's supposed to be our logo:

(R) Corporation of the City of Thunder Bay

You can kinda see what they wanted to achieve with the new livery but you can also see that they failed. Give me 20 minutes in Illustrator and I could make it better.

But they didn't do that, so they missed out.

In Canada, there was a real hate-on for new looking buses. The GMC NewLook was manufactured in Canada for several years because the Classic was too "crazy futuristic". Flush windows are available on North American built transit buses but they cost extra because the mechanics involved in making them pop off in emergencies is different. All bus windows except for those that don't have seats beside them must come cleanly off in the event of an emergency so that people can get out of the bus as quickly as possible. The chunky rear lights are also a cheaper option, Thunder Bay actually pays for smaller ones:

A little extra and harder to replace but they look better.

And we do have some new looking buses that are just starting to come out:

A TTC Orion VII NG, Orion is owned by Daimler I think. It has flush windows and a streamlined front. This is the standard low floor bus from the company. NewFlyer has redesigned it's front as well but I think that's still an optional feature. It's cheaper to get the older design and we don't care too much if our buses look like they're from Europe 2015 or not.

Thunder Bay's buses are NovaBus LFSs. NovaBus is owned by Volvo and the design is based on European buses. It was the most futuristic bus on the continent when it came out.

arkhitektor · #14 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 10:36 PM**

So far, I like LA's livery the most.
Its simple, but not boring and I like that Local, Rapid and Express routes all have their own color. Also, at least from the pics posted above, there are no advertisements on any of them, which helps keep a streamlined look.

It also seems like it can be applied uniformly to both old and new busses. From what we've seen so far, it looks like a lot of agencies get a new liverly every time they get a new order of vehicles. This tends to create a rather haphazard look across the fleet. The LA liverly on the other hand, looks just as good on older vehicles as it does on new ones:

Quote:

dimondpark · #15 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 10:41 PM**

AC Transit in Oakland and the East Bay

Many lines into DT SF use these buses...

They have Wi Fi

ThreeHundred · #16 Posted: **Jan 28, 2009, 12:52 AM**

Here is the Suntran in Tucson, Arizona. I'm thinking that everytime they got a new order of buses, they changed their livery. None of the buses have a uniform look aside from the three colors of their logo (white, red, and yellow).

Cirrus · #17 Posted: **Jan 27, 2009, 10:38 PM**

Oh! How could I forget! I've actually gotten to design a bus livery in real life.

This is the existing City of Fairfax CUE bus:

CUE is a small system with just a couple of routes, so I didn't bother to list it earlier (there are dozens of bus operators in the DC area). I was part of a 4-person team that designed the new paint scheme for CUE's next order. I didn't get everything I wanted (the maintenance guy want lots of white so they wouldn't have to work as hard to maintain the paint, for example, while I wanted no white), but what we came up with turned out OK.

Here it is:

No actual buses yet, but when they're delivered next year, this is what they'll look like.

KevinFromTexas · #18 Posted: **Jan 28, 2009, 1:42 AM**

Capital Metro Express Bus

http://flickr.com/photos/27884592@N0...7612128965163/

http://flickr.com/photos/27884592@N0...7612128965163/

Capital Metro's Downtown Dillo. These are free to ride.

http://flickr.com/photos/27884592@N0...7612128965163/

For the handicapped.

http://flickr.com/photos/27884592@N0...7612128965163/

Capital Metro's University of Texas buses. These are actually operated by a different company than the city line.

http://flickr.com/photos/27884592@N0...7612128965163/

Texas State University shuttle. These run from Austin to San Marcos to carry students back and forth.

http://flickr.com/photos/27884592@N0...7612128965163/

Cool set of photos here by Metrobus on Flickr of many cities.
http://flickr.com/photos/27884592@N0...7612128965163/