Manifesto Multilinko
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
in which I ride the double-decker

It was a rather disheartening chilly day at the Blair stop watching one "out of service" bus after another whizz by, interspersed with Hurdman buses, but it was worth it, because The Double-Decker arrived.

Good:
* takes up less space
* cool view from up top

Not so good:
* garbled announcement from driver (he was saying "there's lots of room up top" but I heard "there's no room up top")
* narrow and (I think) single set of stairs up and down to the upper deck
* you are not allowed to stand on the upper deck until the bus has completely stopped (there was an OC Transpo guy up there forbidding everyone to stand) which means you're supposed to
1) Somehow ring your stop (I didn't see many places to ring on the upper level)
2) Wait until the bus has come to a full stop
3) Shove your way down the stairs as fast as you can in order to
4) Get out of the bus before the driver closes the doors and continues to the next stop

Also I suspect some people may find the unobstructed view through the front window

[DSC03446]

either terrifying or (in the case of the guy who was there today) so entrancing it's possible all they do is ride on the upper level front row all day.

Overall it's cool, but they need to resolve the issues of loading and unloading the top level (particularly if the bus is full) before it will actually be useful.

[DSC03456]

You can see the full photoset on Flickr: Ottawa Double-Decker Bus.

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