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SLO double-decker bus crashed into bridge

January 25, 2016

Double decker bus 2

Part of the top of San Luis Obispo’s double-decker bus was sheared off Monday morning when its driver attempted to drive the 14 foot-high bus under a 12 and a half foot-high railroad bridge on Highland Drive on the Cal Poly campus.

While attempting to leave the campus, with no passengers on board, the driver went off route. The driver was not injured in the crash.

In 2010, the city purchased the bus to eliminate problems with a lack of bus seats. Usually during the first few weeks of a quarter at Cal Poly, the city would run an extra bus for a few hours four mornings a week to eliminate problems with buses being too crowded to fit all the people waiting to get on.

At that time, public works staff noted that the 14 foot-high bus would not fit under railroad bridges and tree lined roads. Because of this, the bus was unable to cover all but a portion of one existing route without modifications.

City workers then trimmed trees and raised two cables to modify Route 4 and Route 5, the two busiest routes.

In addition, public works’ officials needed to reconstruct the opening of the maintenance building to accommodate the $850,000 two-story vehicle.

The cost of repairing the vehicle is not yet available. The driver was taken out of work rotation while the accident is investigated.


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I am awaiting a statement from the Mayor as to how this could have happened on her watch.


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Everybody except the ruling elite thought this was an impractical purchase. But SLO has plenty of money for this an an equal amount make expensive an unneeded sidewalk improvement to benefit the Downtown Business Association. How about voting on a tax increase on these things rather than holding hostage basic functions of City government such as road repairs unless you agree to more taxes?


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Maybe he isn’t playing with a full decker.


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One of the few times I took a city bus (about 20 years ago), there was a fire at Albertsons and the bus got rerouted onto Serrano Dr and proceeded to dig its front end into the pavement at the steep decline onto Broad St. It was stuck there for about 5 minutes until the driver gunned it and freed the bus while gouging out a huge chuck of pavement. Bad things happen when you go off route in a small town.


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Was the driver under the influence?! That should be the first step in this investigation. 2nd step would be to fire whoever approved of buying that stupid mid-life-crisis mobile for the city. It still takes almost an hour to get across town using Slo Transit anyway. This bus was a bad idea from the beginning.


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I am sure Marx had something to do with it she is an idiot.


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In his defense did anyone tell him about the bridge? “Professional” drivers run into this bridge ever 5 years or so. They used to have a cable strung across the road on Highland with chains hanging down. Are they still there? If you hit the chains then you’re going to hit the bridge and it still happened. As to repair; let’s just remove the rest of the roof and use it for open air tours of SLO? And it could go under the bridge just everybody duck, the seats weren’t hit. Could be a new SLO tradition rivaling Bubble Gum Alley.


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