I'm going to begin posting more pictures in a little while. I have some pictures now of the nursing home at Coral Way.
Last Sunday I passed the Lehman shops on the 73 bus, and to my suprise I saw another big batch of RTS' there. And there was also a large batch of Flxibles as well, which means that the other two divisions have also been retiring some of them.
I made a very pleasant discovery at Central this week. I saw an old bus from the late '40's parked along the wall that runs along NW 32 Ave. It's either a GMC TDH or a Mack C-47. I didn't see it up close but I'm pretty sure it's in it's original livery. It's parked with the 2 RTS' that Central still has, and which are now being used by Miami-Dade Police. So MDTA's historical fleet has at least 1 bus in it. Wow- a fleet of one. Heee,hee,hee! :)
I'm pretty sure you must be thinking, 'who IS this fool, and how does he know so much about buses and stuff?' For you folks, I'm creating a profile page about myself. The word 'profile' should be linked. If it's not, then the page isn't ready yet.
The Aventura shooting was a murder-suicide. The guy killed the man his wife was dumping him for, then himself. Funny thing is, many people say that the victim had it coming, that he was a thief and a homewrecker. Too wierd. I also made a glaring omission in listing the routes that serve Aventura- I totally forgot about Miami-Dade's #9 bus, which also serves the mall, running up NE 2 Ave. from Downtown Miami. I listed BCt's #9, but not MDTA's #9. Ooops. And I found out that my guess was right- the buses didn't go in during the incident there. Metrobus sent most of it's street supervisors there to coordinate the buis service.
Happy Veteran's day to our veterans.
Yesterday Bus Operator Jose A. Algaze was buried at Woodlawn Cemetary. The viewing was Tuesday evening at the Rivero Funeral Home on Bird Road and SW 82 Avenue. The burial was at about 2 PM yesterday afternoon. At noon a group of bus drivers left Coral Way on a bus headed to the burial. Bus #9931 served as the funeral bus; in fact, it's destination sign read "FUNERAL". They returned at about 4 PM to the garage. Bus # 9944 came over from Central and spent the day at C.W. Buses 6041 and 6043 are at Central.
There is another dark story developing, there was a murder-suicide today at the Starbucks in the Aventura Mall. The mall is closed, and the area where the buses park at- the North enterance by the Treats food court is closed off, although the shooting was in the "piazza" in the new part of the mall, the south end, near The Cheesecake Factory and the AMC - 24 theater. Buses are probably not even entering the mall- buses serving the mall are: 3,E,S,V, Biscayne MAX and Broward County-BCT routes 1 and 9. The E,S and the BCT 1 and 9 end there.
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What's new (Tuesday November 9 ,1999) I've begun to do some of the old-school bus routes, the ones that existed before the 1986 realignment of bus service here ("Network '86"). I've done route 5. Other routes coming include the 46 express, the D, the O and the legendary Route X (the first, eliminated and reinstated in 1986 , and re-eliminated in 1988; and the second, which was in existence in 1991. When Network '86 was implemented, many of the routes that are here now changed numbers. So now on each applicable route I do, I'll include the route number before 1986. Something really sad happened here last night. A bus operator suffered a massive heart attack at the wheel. The driver was on the 24 bus headed into downtown Miami. Just after he passed the Coral Way garage, approaching SW 67 Ave., he slumped over. The bus was still moving. A quick-thinking passenger managed to grab the wheel and stop the bus at Coral Way and SW 65 Ave. The passengers then began CPR on the driver and called for help. Sadly, the driver died. He had been with Metrobus for about a year, he and his brother both drove out of Coral Way. He also leaves behind a wife and two little children. May he Rest In Peace. |
Happy Birthday to ME!!! Yours truly, the webmaster, turned 20 years old at 1:30 PM yesterday, Thursday November 4th. My belated present was my paycheck. Feels good to get paid!!!
The 7000 series Flxibles are being gently shoved into retirement. Yesterday 7014 and 7033 were towed away. Today another one was towed off, although I couldn't see the fleet number.
Yesterday 9330's windshield was shattered by a rock thrown at it while it was on SW 264 St. in Naranja. It was on the southbound 35 bus. The driver kept driving until he was out of the area, parking It on SW 142 Ave. just below SW 268 St. There were two reasons for this: 1- it might get rocked again, and 2- it was 3:15 PM and the bus was in a school zone, which means traffic.No one was hurt.
Power 96 is having auditions for it next bus-side girl. Right now 9349 is the only Miami-Dade bus I've seen that still has the baby-wrap with the current bus-side girl on it....that girl's fine, too!!! ...7014 and 7046 also carried the wrap, and as soon as it was peeled off they were retired. See the roster page for the current retirement breakdown.
Happy Halloween!!!!
I've added route 74.
I've done a page that lists each route by which garage it comes out of. It needs updating, though. Read it here.
The MDTA mighr get another shipment of low-floors soon.
Some of the 7000 series Flxibles might be retired soon. Already 7002,7013,7037 and 7046 are parked and haven't been moved in some 2 weeks.
5006,5011,5026 and one of the Burdines artics (5012, perhaps?) have gone from Central to Coral Way.
9201-9205 may have gone from Coral Way to Northeast. I know for sure that 9203 is up there now.
Since it's Halloween, tonight drivers will be on edge since buses are a favorite target for egg-throwers. This is especially true in Liberty City and Kendall.
I've discovered a set of differences in the 6000 series mini-buses: 6001-6022 have their radios right above the driver's head; 6023-6046 have the main set locked away in the compartment they'd otherwise be attached to on the outside.
Enjoy the holiday.
We got a monstrous suprise on Friday October 15th, when Hurricane Irene struck South Florida. The Category 1 hurricane was supposed to hit the Tampa Bay area but the eye kept shifting east until it wound up hitting in our backyard. The eye made landfall on Cape Sable, in southwestern Monroe County, at about 2:30 PM. At this point the winds actually increased from 75 to 85 MPH. The eye was moving northeast, and it crossed into Miami-Dade county at about 6PM. It entered Broward County at 8PM and entered Palm Beach County at about 10PM. It entered the ocean near West Palm Beach at about midnight, still a hurricane. We received lots of rain. Winds were very high, with trees and powerlines coming down all over. At 5 PM the MDTA cancelled all bus, rail and mover service. Since no one expected the storm to hit directly, folks went to work. Rush rour began at noon as the county and everyone else sent their people home. Eight died from the storm - a woman, her twin 13 year-old sons and their friend died when they walked into a puddle that had a live, fallen power line in it, this in Broward. In Dade another woman died the same way, and two drowned when they drove their cars off a flooded street into a canal, thinking it was another street. Up to 675,000 were without power. Areas like Hialeah, Opa-Locka and Sweetwater had massive floods. Now we know that even a cat 1 storm is nothing to mess with, although the winds never got to hurricane force in most areas.
The new Blue birds are on the street. See the roster page for more info.
I finally linked the 62 and the 77 to the routes page.
I will eventually change the disclaimer as I've been employed to drive the minibuses, therefore I now have a link to the MDTA. So my roster updates will be more accurate since I'll know sooner!
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What's new (Monday October 11, 1999) Modified the disclaimer. Not much else is new this week, though. |