Metro scales back plan to install driver shields

[Tritransit Area]

http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/10615484/dc-metro-cuts-back-plan-to-protect-bus-drivers-with-plastic-shields

Both sides have very valid points...  I remember SEPTA was hesitant to install such shields because of driver comfort and that it could affect (however minor) the driver's ability to escape in an emergency.  I'm still flabbergasted by the price.  I understand they wouldn't cost $10 to make or something like that, but $1500 each and then an additional $200 to install?

[NewFlyer9736BCT]

$1700 total for each? that's way too much if you ask me.

I'm sure the 51 new buses they're referring to are the Orion VII replacements of the 3900s

Two buses already have the shields as a preliminary test.

2381 is one of those buses, not sure which is the other.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Unless you live somewhere like Rio de Janeiro, which has the highest amount of bulletproof glass per capita out of any city in the world, most people aren't looking to order a parittion that is strong enough to withstand the sort of abuse drivers need to be protected from, yet still "open" enough to allow necessary interactions between the drivers and passengers.  To top it off, most places (fortunately) don't need this sort of partition.  In Rome and other Italian cities, the buses work on a POP system so the driver was behind a partition, but my guess is that partition wouldn't do much to help a driver in WMATA's situations.  Economies of scale at work is my guess for the price.

It makes me somewhat disappointed in the US sometimes to see the amount of protection needed for innocent people just doing their jobs.  Bus drivers in Israel make change and have large quantities of cash on them (people can buy monthly bus passes worth over 250 NIS from the drivers, a regular fare in comparison is 6.60 NIS in Jerusalem right now), and at my bank, the tellers work almost entirely in the open, not much of anything separating you from the teller when you are at the counter getting service and the door that keeps you out of their seating area comes up to about the level of my waist, yet you don't hear about bank robberies or attacks on bus drivers happening here.

[79MetroExtraMD]

It's the whole desperate times, desperate measures thing. Not that long ago, people wouldn't have thought about attacking bus operators because they were trying to get you where you needed to go, but for some reason, people want to take out their anger and hatred on them and make it worse for those trying to get from point A to point B. If only people had common sense, we wouldn't need these devices.