Muni, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, has taken up an option to order 185 New Flyer Xcelsior 40ft (12.2m) trolleybuses for delivery by 2019. This follows two prior option orders placed over the past year for 186 Xcelsior 60ft (18.3m) articulated trolleybuses.
Muni carries 200,000 passengers a day on its trolleybuses and these vehicles will operate on routes 1 California, 22 Fillmore, 24 Divisadero, 30 Stockton and 45 Union-Stockton.
‘We desperately need the new 40ft trolleybuses to improve the ride for passengers and the impacts on our environment,’ says board president London Breed. ‘These new buses will serve passengers on the city’s hilliest and busiest routes and will replace the oldest and most problematic buses in the system. We can’t have them on our roads soon enough.’
They will oust the survivors of 240 Electric Transit-built Skoda 14TrSF vehicles new in 2001-03, whose mechanical problems account for 40% of delays across the system.
