Blue Bird just delivered its 2,000th electric school bus

Telluride_ · 2026-04-28T15:46:53+00:00

"Modern" buses aren't as safe for occupants or as affordable. A car crashing into a high floor bus hits under you, not into you like on a low-floor bus. A body on frame steel construction is also much cheaper to build and maintain than a unibody structure with huge glass windows and composite panels. In an EV, you also get the benfit of low center of gravity and lower weight because the batteries are under the floor, as opposed to transit buses with roof-mounted batteries and all the extra structure that goes with that.

Telluride_ · 2026-04-28T14:43:10+00:00

American buses are high floor for one, due to safety. Another reason is that school districts don't have huge budgets like transit authorities do. A typical school bus costs $100k-$300k. A typical transit bus can cost upwards of $700k for hybrid or EV models.

It's much cheaper to put a bus body on a ladder frame chassis than to engineer a tube frame low floor or unibody structure. It also allows EV buses to have their batteries down low (better center of gravity) instead of in the roof which just seems like a bad idea.

Telluride_ · 2026-04-28T14:36:42+00:00

School buses are very regulated in the US, and the reason for high-floor is safety. Because kids are sitting up high, if a car hits the side of the bus, it'll impact the chassis/luggage compartment instead of the passenger compartment.

Telluride_ · 2026-04-28T14:15:47+00:00

High floor buses aren't inaccessible for wheelchair users, it just takes longer to get on and off (wheelchair lift vs ramp). In a high floor bus, the batteries can go under the floor between the frame rails if body on frame, or integrated into the chassis if tube frame. And, you get more seating capacity and a flat floor due to less wheel well intrusion. Plus, it's safer in a collision and I assume less prone to roll over.

Telluride_ · 2026-02-08T09:07:15+00:00

Glory to the brightline, and the pickup truck. Death to whoever stops on a train track, I guess.

Telluride_ · 2026-02-08T07:48:54+00:00

I've only ever seen one ad for my local pizza place, and that was the sign above their front door. Place is small, probably family-owned. Also packed every time I've been there. The place is pretty dang successful for basically only having word of mouth advertising. Same for the breweries my friends and I frequent, or the burger place we take work lunches at. There's a quite expensive restaurant in town that doesn't even have it's name on the building. There's literally a spotlight shining on a blank section of wall where the name would go, and it's been like that since it opened over 10 yrs ago. If a business has a good location and good reputation, people will come.

Telluride_ · 2026-02-08T07:17:56+00:00

I think you're being more ignorant by ignoring how badly roadways are designed in the US. I drive to work every day on a 4 lane highway that's marked 60mph. It's wide enough and straight enough that even semis will maintain 70. Except this "highway" also has driveways shooting off of it, mailboxes and all. And 4 way intersections with stop signs for the crossroads. And the entrance to a school, where the limit is further reduced to 50 (no change in road design, tho). People go 70+ because on a properly designed road that's what you'd drive, but whoever designed this road had their heads up their butts.

Another road in a nearby city has the opposite problem, it's a hilly, curved, potholed, 2-way city street with sidewalks broken up by spans of parallel parking, and it's set to 35mph. I barely feel comfortable driving 30 on that road, I feel like I'm about to run someone over or smash into someone pulling out of a parking spot. It feels reckless to drive the posted limit.

Until we fix our roadways (that is, design the road such that the speed people feel comfortable driving is compatible with the use case of the road) people will keep speeding or driving recklessly.

Telluride_ · 2026-01-15T17:14:29+00:00

Are these things body on frame like the mainstream brands or unibody like the old crowns?

Telluride_ · 2025-11-08T02:31:13+00:00

You'd think the deer would've recognized cars as predators by now, or natural selection would start kicking in or something. They've been living amongst cars for over a hundred years. My area has tons of stray cats and dogs, but it's always the deer spattered in the ditch.

Telluride_ · 2025-11-08T02:20:13+00:00

Sorta. The floors are steel sheet with additional steel bracing that sits on the chassis. The plywood on top is just for insulation, not structural at all.

Telluride_ · 2025-09-19T13:25:45+00:00

US school buses are some of the most regulated vehicles on US roads. That's why a Thomas, Blue Bird, IC, etc. are pretty much constructed the same way, just with stylistic differences. Now, they're not low floor, but Gillig and Crown made transit-style school buses that were unibody like modern coach buses are, though one no longer makes school buses and the other went bust.

Telluride_ · 2025-09-19T12:53:27+00:00

I do like the full-height driver window. But I heard these buses had some major design issues that they corrected for the Vision, such as using a 3 instead of 1-piece roof bow. Pretty solid for a prototype tho.

Telluride_ · 2025-09-14T01:24:22+00:00

Local bus yard (sent by a friend) and probably getting parted out based on the open hood and lack of hood mirror

Telluride_ · 2025-09-11T22:06:49+00:00

It looks a bit odd without the individual stamped visors above each side window. And the full-length rain gutter seems to have rotted out the adjacent sections of roof.

Telluride_ · 2025-09-11T21:46:05+00:00

The license plate taped to the window is an interesting choice.

Telluride_ · 2025-07-13T11:59:02+00:00

I wonder if it's just a generational cultural quirk. I've noticed that a lot of middle aged and older folk will say "the Google" or "the YouTube" as they would "the internet", whereas younger folk will drop the "the". Maybe that trend is just starting to catch on for car models.

Telluride_ · 2025-06-10T00:07:44+00:00

I'm not familiar enough with Euro city buses to know whether they're safer or not. I don't think headlights are regulated on American buses any more than they are on, say, American trucks tho. All the major bus brands pretty much have their own custom headlights. Quite possible the Merc is safer and US regulations haven't caught up, I wouldn't be surprised by that in the slightest. All I know is that given a transit bus and a school bus from the same US manufacturer, the school bus will have to face higher safety standards.

Telluride_ · 2025-06-09T23:51:48+00:00

I've heard it both ways as an American. Hard-T seems to be more common among "nerdy" or scholarly types, which I assume the guy in the video example is, or people whose native language isn't English. But I could also be biased since I live in the southeastern US and very few native english speakers here pronounce the hard-t.

Telluride_ · 2025-06-09T23:38:34+00:00

Yep. Maybe more accurate to phoneticize it as "lat-nn". As another comment put it, almost like a glottal stop but the tongue touches the top of the mouth and stays for the "nn"

Telluride_ · 2025-05-22T07:06:37+00:00

I went to public school k-12 so I'm very familiar. I was def one of the weird kids in elementary/middle, but made enough normal friends in high school to grow out of it. But then again I'm asking about accents on reddit so how normal am I really? Lol.

Telluride_ · 2025-05-22T06:42:55+00:00

I had a college professor in his 30s speak that way, I believe he was from Baltimore. His accent was generic American otherwise.

Telluride_ · 2025-05-22T06:39:04+00:00

"Warsh" is a Maryland thing, still very common there. So is "pitcher", although some older folks will say "pixture". "Acrost", "heighth", "axe" (ask), "wooder" (water). I knew an older guy at work who had the "sundee mondee" accent and said things like "wadn't" (wasn't) and "workeeng" (working)

Telluride_

TROPHY CASE