Help us pick our next bus seats!
Help us pick our next bus seats!
We’re looking at changing bus seats and you have the chance to help us choose!
Over the next month, two bus seats are competing for your votes at the Lonsdale Quay SeaBus Terminal. Based on which one you like better, the winning seat will be installed on 14 incoming battery-electric buses and possibly other buses we order in the future.
Both of the new bus seats are lighter, and believe it or not, that can make a big difference to a vehicle’s operability. Both of the new seats are roughly 10 pounds lighter than our current seats, which would make our buses up to 250 pounds lighter in total.
For battery-electric buses, every pound counts. The lighter the bus, the further it can travel before having to recharge. Our current battery-electric buses can travel around 40 or 100 kilometres on a single charge, depending on the model. Our next order of battery-electric buses from Nova Bus should be able to travel over 150 kilometres on a single charge. By making it lighter through this change, it will help the bus travel even further.
We’re also looking at potentially making this switch for other buses we purchase in the future. Making buses lighter would make our buses cleaner, emitting fewer greenhouse gas emissions per kilometre travelled.
So, if you have the chance to make it down to Lonsdale Quay any time soon, step right up, take a seat and scan the QR code to vote!
ALL I ASK IS THAT YOU CONSIDER GIVING US TALL FOLKS ENOUGH LEG ROOM TO SIT DOWN IN THE FORWARD FACING SEATS. THANK YOU
Yes please!
seat A
Seat B
This.
I love the seet
A
I totally agree with the many comments on the bus seats needing to actually accommodate the real customers that ride buses. Tall, disabled, large, with bags, parcels and mobility devices. That is more important than bus weight savings. And why are these test seats located at Lonsdale Seabus station? Why not put more test seats in more commonly visited locations? Not every bus rider goes to North Van….and while you’re considering seats, also plan for more clearance between rows of seats in any new buses so riders can actually move in and out easily, as easily as on Canada Line trains. Many people hog aisle seat just to avoid having to crawl over someone to exit. Cramming more seats into smaller space is not helpful.
Why can you consider bench seats on both sides of the train, metro, buses to save more room and weight plus provide carrying capacity like in many European cities.
Both seats are about the same, choose the lighter weight .
Plus give standing space for stroller and wheel chair.
A seat
Seat A
I tried both A. & B, I find Chair A is more comfortable! Good Luck!
Add antimicrobial copper to the built-in handle
Yes please. I invested in TECK
Agreed! None of the handles get cleaned by staff, ever. They didn’t even do it during COVID even though that’s what they told the public. If they’re going to cheap out on labour might as well put that extra money towards anti-microbial material.
They most definitely did. Extra crew was hired just for disinfecting the buses at the end of each day.
Kevin people want to see the bus cleaned all day, we are not around at the end of the night to make sure this cleaning even got done , dont you remember 2009 this was the same.
I know it’s wishful thinking, but it would be nice if seats were designed for people who have arms and shoulders…
End of the day?……not near enough!
I’m just glad those fuzzy bed bug hibernation seats are out of the picture!
Oh me too. I get nervous on those seats
Is there a washroom in our future if i ask nicely ?
66 year old with a prostrate
How about bringing back those comfy seats on the 2000-01 D40LF, as well as the proper suburban seats on the 2001/08 Orion V? Those are proper bus seats because they’re truly comfortable. Furthermore, the D40LF seats are very easy to clean and still meet current fire safety standards.
I dislike the trend of bus seats getting less comfortable these days.
Love those seats
I just want ones with headrests…
Is there a Seat C option? Preferably a more comfy seat similar to what our D40LFs and Orions had?
Exactly. Does anyone who buys these seats ever sit in them for any long period of time on an actual bus journey? The seats of the era post D40LF are just awful, very hard and very uncomfortable. They suggest a purchasing system that doesn’t care about or consider the end user. The newer seats in the Rapid Bus fleet are better than that at least. Better still are the seats of earlier eras with deeper padding and moquette covering (which are far more effective at holding the rider in place as the bus bounces around).
The Orions have the best seat in the entire network (deep padding and moquette covering), followed by the shuttle buses (although they are usually off set by the very poor ride quality).
I was actually thrown off a seat on the 620 Tsawwassen Ferry bus when the bus veered fast on a bend.
Contrary to a writer above, I prefer the fuzzy seats. With the shiny ones I have often slid right out of my seat when a driver stands on the brakes…which they do more often than is necessary. ( no…not really often, but still more often than necessary ).
They also don’t get cleaned and retain a lot of… stuff. They only get cleaned if someone tells the driver that there is bodily fluid on it. So no, these seats are an abomination and should never come back.
Agree also – these have moquette coverings that are widely used in other transit networks (such as the London Underground) and the fact that they hold the rider in place is one of the reasons they are used.
How about American Seating Model 6466 for the seats? It’s close enough to the American Seating Model 6484 seats used on the D40LFs that everyone keeps mentioning, and bring back American Seating Model 2003 for the suburban buses that are used on the Orion Vs because the plastic backs of those Lazzerini Pratico 3840 seats on the double deckers are going to be cracked to hell within the next 5 years. You guys are clearly being supplied by American Seating because Seat A is literally the same American Seating InSight seating model used on the MK III SkyTrain cars, which are hardly anymore comfortable than the current awful USSC Aries seats found in most conventional buses, and Seat B looks like American Seating Vision. Your customers do not care about the weight of your buses, they care about the comfort of their journey. Don’t cheap out on your seats again.
How about seats that accomodate fat people so that we can take the bus without receiving hateful looks and comments from other passengers?
Seconding that translink needs to consider the reality of diverse bodies. Fat people need to take the bus too and it certainly wouldn’t be a difficult thing to accomodate.
These seats just scream Fat Phobia!
Also adding my voice to please make wider seats for bigger bodies.
Me too! I’m quite broad-shouldered and it makes riding the bus an awful experience for both me and my neighbors when I get such a tiny allocation of space.
The seats really need to be bigger to accommodate people who are fat, people with disabilities. You are not serving either community with the current design. The current design causes stress anxiety and shame for people who need more space.
Agreed. I have linebacker shoulders that take up a seat and a half. Pair that with a chronic neck issue and back issues and folding myself into a seat to either allow someone to cram themselves next to me, or so my glute doesn’t ride on the metal side of the seat, means an agonizing commute to and from work all week.
Seat B but wider? Hate having someone breathe on me or elbow me because everyone is texting.
Adding to the comments about wide/more roomy seats – it allows for both comfort and functionality for a wide range of bodies as well as all the canes, walkers, big winter coats, groceries, backpacks, strollers, luggage, etc. that transit users frequently have with them.
I also understand that the cushy bumpers/handrails on the end of some of the seats is an accessibility feature, but it frequently has the opposite effect, causing injuries, trapping the passengers in the aisle, and making it very hard to get by to the back of the bus or out the door.
It would make transit a more viable options for more people if these factors were considered.
Proof once again public transit will literally never serve the public. These seats are tiny and make it so you have to touch the person next to you. Doesn’t work for tall people, fat people, disabled people.
Useless.
People don’t care about the weight of the buses. We care about ease of access and comfort. How about considering how people who are fully/partially disabled, overweight people, or tall people will be able to utilize these seats. It won’t be perfect for anyone group of people, but Translink could at least try and be more compassionate to those who don’t fit in this very narrow shaped box that does not fit all bodies.
There’s no dimension information given… how are folks supposed to evaluate these seats if we can’t go in person to Lonsdale Quay? If by “lighter” they include reducing any of the seat dimensions, this is a disaster for fat folks, many disabled folks, and others. The seats are already precarious enough as it is. I get it, for whatever reason you want the buses to be able to go farther between charges, but surely there are other ways to reduce the overall weight without making taking transit just that much less accessible.
Seat B is much better but not the best, just please dont use A
I get that you wanna lighten the buses up so your buses can travel longer on a charge. But this is only one consideration. Lighter buses won’t have the same impact on energy use as like more people actually taking the bus. And when you make the bus such a cramped, uncomfortable option for anyone carrying two grocery bags or a backpack or riding all the way to a ferry terminal, that’s when they say forget it and hop in the Uber. I don’t want to be touching the person next to me when I ride for so many reasons. Disabled folks and larger folks just naturally need more space. Please don’t make the seats any smaller or narrower.
henlo
I would like to suggest that 4-8 or so bus seats could be like extra wide fir overweight people
maybe some seats with extra legroom
and for some buses on busy routes, less seats overall if that is possible. more people would stand and that gives greater passenger capacity
and the backward facing seats on some buses are annoying. get rid of them
I believe that given the ever-increasing rise of obesity throughout Canada seats need to be more accommodating for those who do not have a cookie cutter physique. As bodies comes in different sizes it would be nice to see Translink take a bold step in defeating weight bias in the community and elsewhere.
B,, B,, most definitely …
Seat A looks more comfortable. I use a walker, and need seats that lift separately an easily. Do either of these lift? Have most problems on 40 ft diesel buses. Don’t know about battery buses. I am not going to make an arduous trip to Lonsdale Quay.
I agree that the seats are made narrower and narrower to be too much to everyone despite of the size of our bodies. What about the space needed for those with walkers and strollers. Narrower is by width and depth. I agree that the cloth surfaces are not good for a number of things from what’s on a persons clothing, like construction workers, the idiots that think the the seats are foot rests, to the parents that let their children stand on the seats. There’s the ads for using copper so the handles should be copper. I do agree to GET RID OF THE BACKWARD SEATS on the buses!!! Too many of the younger population think that they’re foot rests and there’s very little room for things like bags or luggage and even tall people with long legs that doesn’t give room for those trying to use the seat on the other side. Buy double deckers that are wider as there’s very little room for people to get to the back of the bus and the vast majority have something in their hands. The buses that have the yellow arm rests at the seats before the back door, GET RID OF THEM as it makes in very hard to walk through them. If it’s to accommodate seniors or those with mobility problems those buses aren’t made to that and that’s what the Handydarts are for. Beside I haven’t seen people needing or using them. Never use the double deckers that go to the ferry terminals!!!! Not everyone are hikers or day travellers that don’t have luggage bags. A hiker once told me that they can’t get up the stairs as you think they can. Beside there’s a sign at the staircase that says not large objects to take up there. I once saw a long bus having racks for luggage bags and they should have them as it’s very hard to get around with all of them getting in the way to get out as not everyone goes from the terminal to Skytrain (Tsawwassen) or downtown (Horseshoe Bay).
‘B’ looks wider and flatter, which would accommodate wider bodies, but the seats could have more space between them. Also please make the seat parallel to the floor, not tilted back like a bucket seat, because that can cause spinal strain and also pain under the front of the thighs, especially for short people.
The current latest seat design is not comfortable for tall people. The top of the seat has a slight cupped shape, and instead of cupping the shoulder blades like most people, the top seat edge cuts into the back of tall people, very painful after 15mins. Keep the lumbar support, but please just make the rest of the seat curve backwards- not forwards into one’s back.
Seat style A
Seat B
Seat B seems easier to clean and they are bigger, but not as comfortable as Seat A. It’s hard to comment without testing them physically. For any public transit facilities, comfort and easy to clean/maintain should be the priority consideration.
Seniors prefer arms on seats, easier to hold onto, stand up and exit seat.
Wider seats and higher backs.
We need all the help we can get as mobility continues to be a challenge in later years.
seat A
Seat A
Seat B
Neither option is accessible to fat people. I’m not even particularly fat and I wouldn’t be comfortable in either, so I know some of my fat friends would absolutely not be able to use them.
Also, the seats need to be less slick. I’ve gotten flung out of seats before because the bus stopped too fast (middle back seats, or aisle seats when the bus is turning), and if I had more severe mobility issues I could have gotten seriously hurt.
I will not be able to see the seats in person, but I would like to say that you need to be mindful of the back shape – some of the seats currently on buses and skytrains are really painful. One the buses, the side-facing seats in the front have a weird shape that hurts my back, but the front facing ones are fine. The mark 1 skytrain seats also cause me a lot of pain. I’d rather stand, but with my chronic illness I’m not always able to stand for long periods of time – sometimes I’m just stuck sitting in a seat that causes me pain for 30+ minutes at a time. It’s frustrating how the side facing seats in the front of the bus are easier to access for people who really need them, but they are distinctly the least ergonomic seats in the bus.
I tried both the seats and like the B.
All I ask is that you add some cushion or soft material to cover the handle above the chair. When the bus stopped I bumped into the handle
and almost broke my teeth and my lips got swollen. This is even more important for older people.
Like the Seat A design and dislike the Seat B cause the leg is easy to trip and easy to storage garbage inside.
What a great idea. Would never had entered my mind about the weight of the seats but it makes sense. I love the new seats. I would go with selection A.
This will be exciting when the buses switch to electric ones. I love our transit system.
Seat A
I guess tall people will go with B, but I loved Seat A.
isuggest replacing every 2bus seats with like a bench. ppl here are complaining about fat people & bus seats, put in bench and problem solved. also takes up less space for when parent + 2 child, etc
Personally I think an ergonomic bench design fits more body types. I would have no problem scrunching over if the edge of the seat didn’t dig into me
Seats with arms are more convenient for the elderly since they provide a handrail for rising from the chair.
Increased seat width and back support.
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