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Paratransit Speed
"Access Systems" wrote:
low floor with ramp is accessible, unless a lot of ramps have been retrofitted the first couple thousand low floors were delived without the ramps....will double check with my source in London. [...] my check shows that as of Sept approx 3500 of the 5500 LT buses are Low floor, most of these have a kneeling feature and space on board for wheelchairs but most do not comply with DDA (UK-ADA) "only the low floor buses with the double center doors have the power ramps" Your source is mistaken. The TfL website states (as referenced in a previous message) that "84% of the total bus fleet of 6,663 [about 5600] is wheelchair accessible". Not merely "low-floor" - specifically "wheelchair accessible". Any bus that is low-floor but does not have a wheelchair ramp is regarded as part of the 16% of the fleet that is *not* wheelchair accessible. It is true that the first few hundred low-floor buses in London were not fitted with wheelchair ramps^. A few have had ramps retrofitted; a few may remain in London service unmodified. However, the vast majority have been withdrawn from London service and replaced by newer low-floor buses that *do* have wheelchair ramps fitted. It may seem strange that so many low-floor buses entered service without wheelchair ramps. While with hindsight this clearly was a short-sighted policy, it did sort of make sense at the time. Thanks to relatively high ridership, and (by US standards) relatively narrow roads that require more manoeuvrable (ie shorter) vehicles, many London bus routes need double-deckers. By about 1996, UK bus technology had progressed to the stage where low-floor single-deckers were becoming standard, but low-floor double-deckers (which presented a greater technical challenge) were still some way off. It was not possible to fit folding-step wheelchair lifts to standard-floor buses (these lifts are not legal in the UK if operated (US-style) from the cab - and, as London bus drivers carry cash and give change, it is not generally considered safe for them to leave the cab to operate such lifts). Hence, normal double-deck buses could not be made wheelchair-accessible. So, at this time there was no concept of a London-wide wheelchair-accessible bus network. Without such a concept, there was no perceived need for *any* bus to be wheelchair-accessible (even though this would have been quite possible for single-deckers). However, low-floor buses *were* considered desirable, because they offered easier access to the "ambulant disabled" and those with pushchairs (strollers). Hence, low-floor buses (but without wheelchair ramps) were specified for most single-deck routes. A couple of years later, low-floor double-deckers were developed, and the concept of a wheelchair-accessible London-wide bus network came into vogue. For the last four years, all new buses for London service (both single-deck and double-deck, and including the articulated single-deck buses that have been introduced on a handful of routes since Summer 2002) have been low-floor and wheelchair-accessible. ^ = I don't have the figures, but I'd be surprised if it was as many as two thousand. Still, I could be wrong. -- MetroGnome ~~~~~~~~~~ (To email me, edit return address) |
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