Charles Dudley Warner said it best: "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it."

But truly, what can be done? No matter what we do, the snow and rain will fall, and the sun will shine.

Winter misery in Missouri
Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) director of maintenance Ted Stone says snow and ice are the worst of his worries in Kansas City. To deal with winter weather, Stone says KCATA does its own plowing and salt spreading.

"We're unique from a standpoint that we do a lot of our own plowing and salt spreading on routes, and we also put out tow trucks and standby buses to try to maintain our schedule and provide the service that our customers have become accustomed to."

Stone says KCATA provides reroutes, but only in instances where regular routes are impassable, and, in that case, KCATA uses two different methods of informing riders of the changes.

"If the conditions warrant changing the routes ... we try to inform our customers via the mass media [and] we actually stop and tell people."

KCATA posts weather and reroute information on its Web site for customers' convenience.
To protect Kansas City's buses, Stone says they are stored in a heated bus barn. But even though the buses are stored to keep them warm and dry, once they hit the road, they have to deal with snow or ice that has accumulated. Stone says buses slipping on ice can become a problem in the long run — but hopefully the industry will see a solution in the form of a new product.

"If they had some sort of anti-slip device installed on the buses that would prevent transmission failures after the fact — because when bus wheels slip on ice and then they grab the pavement that's truly detrimental to the operation of the transmission. The more times that happens, the more transmission wear and tear you have."

Desert truly means "ought to be deserted"
Sometimes it becomes painfully obvious that humans were not meant to occupy the vast, torrid deserts of the Western United States. Mother Nature likes to remind us of that on occasion.

Take this summer, for example.

According to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), temperatures above 104 F hit parts of Nevada, California, Arizona and Utah this summer. On July 19, Las Vegas tied the city's record high of 117 F set back in July 1942. But those are extreme, record-breaking temperatures for Nevada.

A typical summer day in the desert is hard on crops, animals and people — but how does it affect public transit? The Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) of Southern Nevada, based in Reno, takes its desert surroundings into consideration when preparing for the dog days of summer.

Joe Jackson, director of maintenance of the RTC of Southern Nevada in Reno, says that keeping buses cool and passengers comfortable are his primary concerns during the hot season.

"To help us with that, we inspect the radiators every evening, and if there is any debris in the radiator, we clean that out. We hose out the radiator — so that gets airflow — to help keep the bus running, and it doesn't overheat. Besides checking the air conditioner, we check the air conditioner filters. We usually check them every 3,000 miles, but when it's hot, we check them every 1,500 miles."

Technology has come a long way in terms of weather protection and prediction, but as surely as the seasons change, there is ample room for further advances. Jackson suggests the development of an air curtain to be used in bus doorways.

"Seems like in the summertime, we could find a better way to keep the buses cool, with the doors opening and shutting. You have heavy routes, and the doors open and shut quite a bit because you have boarding and de-boarding so much. If there's some way they can put an air curtain on the buses [when] the door opens, the hot air stays outside ... like grocery stores have."

Although Nevada sees scorching temperatures, Jackson says Reno also has to deal with cold temperatures and snow in the winter. He says the RTC inspects thermostats on the bus engines to ensure they will heat up quickly. He says they also install snow chains on the tires, which can be a nuisance.

"That's probably more challenging than anything. Sometimes the drivers will hit the curb, and the chains will break."

The RTC in Reno has ordered buses with automatic chains this year to help alleviate the pain of installing and removing chains with every season. Jackson says he would like to see all buses come equipped with auto chains.

Railcars plow tracks "up Nort'"
Perhaps we're not meant to live in the frozen tundra that is the Northern plains, either. Throughout Minnesota, 26 events of extreme cold were reported in the past 10 years. Minnesota's freezing temperatures and wind chills claimed 18 lives and $2.5 million in property damage during that time, according to the NCDC. When night and early-morning temperatures dip all the way down to the -40s and frost bite can occur in less than 10 minutes, Minnesotans have got to wonder if their cars are going to start.

What if they don't? Will the city bus routes and railways be up and running?

Metro Transit, the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area transit system, which provides about 90 percent of the fixed-route service in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, has learned how to deal with frigid temperatures that chill Minnesotans to the bone and the snow that adds another hour — or more — to the morning commute.

Bob Gibbons, director of customer services for Metro Transit, says Metro starts preparation for winter weather each August. "The planning begins long before we get a snowstorm. Every year in August, we evaluate each of our bus routes and determine if their route or their path of travel should be altered in light of ice or snow."

Gibbons says Metro tries to keep its buses on as much level surface as possible by trying to avoid steep hills during inclement weather.

"Based on what our assessment shows, we create a snow emergency brochure for our customers that we put on every bus at the beginning of winter for them to take with them and we also post it on our Web site, so that if we do ever have to declare a winter emergency, our customers will know the new route of travel for their buses."

Gibbons says that during even the most severe winter weather, some bus routes take alternate paths, but none of Metro's routes cease to operate.

"I've been here 11 years, 11 winters, and we've never had to remove service from the street. We just plow through."

In comparison to bus, light rail carries with it its own set of worries.

"On rail, the concern of course is ice, so each of our 24 light rail cars has a built-in snowplow. The snowplow is part of the design of the car — you don't take it off in the summer. ... It doesn't look like a snowplow. It looks kind of like a skirting on the front of the car."

In addition to coping with accumulating snow on the tracks, Gibbons says protecting the doors on the light rail vehicles from snow and ice is key.

"We also have heated door sills on the light rail vehicles to help keep snow and ice from accumulating on the doors. Then we have the option, if we anticipate ice — which is the most difficult thing for rail, with overhead electrical — to install (on the catenary) ice cutters so that we can trim the ice off of the power line before it builds up."

We all know there is no way to stop snow from falling, but there is a way prevent significant accumulation — by continuing to plow so the snow doesn't even have a chance to build up. Gibbons says Metro takes full advantage of the rail cars' built-in snowplows.

"If snow is anticipated, we would run rail cars on the track 24 hours a day. Right now (during the summer), we are off the track for about three hours in the late night/early morning hours from about 1 a.m. to 4 a.m., but if accumulation is suspected, we would continue to run one or two cars during the period in order to keep the track clear so we don't have to plow our own way out in the morning."

Technology plays a huge part in predicting and monitoring weather for everyone — but Gibbons says real-time information could help transit users plan ahead or work around bad weather even more through Metro's and other transit system's Web sites. "I'd like to see technology made useful to the customer during inclement weather. Here at Metro Transit, we don't yet have real-time transit information available to our customers via the Web site or our automated phone system.

"We have AVL (automated vehicle location) on all of our buses and we use that in our control center to help manage the service on a real-time basis, but we haven't yet taken that next step to bring that information to the customer.

"I think it would be quite valuable to a customer in downtown Minneapolis in the afternoon to be able to phone up our automated system or sit at their desk and see ‘How is my route 260 bus doing this afternoon? Should I go out and stand on that corner at 4:12 p.m. as normal or is that bus five, 10, 15 minutes late? Then I can adjust my departure time based on what the satellites are telling us.'"

The eye of the storm
According to the NCDC, 11 tropical storms and 16 hurricanes have ripped through South Carolina in the past 10 years, causing one death, $56.8 million in property damages and $20.4 million in crop damages.

Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA) Executive Director Howard Chapman says hurricanes are Charleston's biggest weather challenge, and emergency evacuation procedures put CARTA in charge of evacuating citizens living in low-lying areas of Charleston and Charleston County.

"We have a very elaborate program that we have implemented in the event of evacuations and evacuation routes. We are the primary group responsible for evacuating citizens from low-lying areas that cannot otherwise evacuate. We are part of the county's emergency management team, and as such, have a very active role in that. I personally am involved with emergency operations with the city of Charleston; in particular, I'm director of their emergency response team."

Chapman also serves as a liaison with the National Weather Service, and he says watching the impending conditions is vital.

"The sequence of events is first to monitor conditions as they begin to unfold ... helping to track the storm. About 48 hours out, decisions are made about evacuations and implementations of evacuation routes. Meetings are held with the emergency preparedness office and we actually establish routes for the evacuation. We then have personnel at the emergency preparedness office assisting with calls that come in regarding the need for evacuation."

CARTA's evacuation plans are made for fixed routes as well as paratransit for the disabled community. Chapman says evacuation routes are established with transit-dependent citizens in mind.

"Evacuation routes are determined from primary areas of the city and county where you may have individuals who don't have access to automobiles. We get them to shelters. Because a large part of the community is in low-lying areas, evacuations have to take place because of the tidal surge. Routes are set up to operate from prime areas where you have transit-dependent population and also from phone calls that are received from citizens in the community.

"As a storm approaches, we have our regular routes operating up to a certain point in time, but as the storm approaches, the need to remove our vehicles and put them in a safe place becomes paramount. We implement that.

"We have some high-level bridges in the area, and once winds reach 50 miles an hour, all service is stopped. After a storm, for recovery purposes, we first of all help people get from the shelters back to their residences. We put in our regular service as quickly as possible as the roads are cleared, and we assist with the recovery efforts."

Ice is not OK
Although Oklahoma may not seem like a Northern state, it still sees its share of winter weather.

Central Oklahoma Transportation & Parking Authority (METRO Transit) in Oklahoma City deals with about a week's worth of snow and ice most winters. Amy Ford, METRO transit spokesperson, says that ice poses the greatest threat to transit in Oklahoma City.

When it ices over in Oklahoma City, Ford says, METRO detours routes, checks the city's schedule for sanding the roads and sends out its own sand trucks.

"When it snows in central Oklahoma, it is just enough to cover the ground. When the ice hits, we have bigger issues. Because of Oklahoma's ‘typical' climate, we do not have bus barns or shelter parking. When we have an ice storm, it not only affects our streets, but also our buses, from the exterior windows to the internal mechanics. It poses a challenge."

Ford says METRO copes with ice as well as it can but could still use some new ideas from other agencies.

"We are only able to react to ice and attempt to use these steps as necessary. All of our steps are done internally and work for us currently, but we are always open to ideas and to discover what other transit agencies are doing to handle issues."

water under the bus
Louisiana has been home to a whopping 421 flood events in the past six years, as of this April, according to the NCDC.

That's right. Not 42, not 21 ... 421.

Therefore — obviously — the biggest weather challenge for transit in the New Orleans area is rain and subsequent flooding. Eddy Moore, director of maintenance at New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (NORTA), says the primary cause of flooding is hurricanes.

"The most crucial one is hurricanes, secondary is tropical storms, and third, it just goes with the region. We live in a tropical environment. ... We have the rain in the daytime and the fronts that blow in off the gulf. So, [dealing with] the raining and street flooding is very crucial to us."

But what qualifies as a flood in New Orleans, if it happens so frequently? And how much rain does it take to stop a bus?

"We have a standing rule in the agency here," Moore says, "that when the water in the street gets up to the first step — that is the first step from the street into the bus — we pull the vehicles off the street. ... With streetcars what we do when the water starts to cover the tracks, is we pull the cars out of service."

Moore admits he can't expect anything to help flood-proof a bus. "What can we expect in addition to what the bus already has? There really ain't nothing I know of that can make our buses more amphibious than the bus that's up in New York City."

Moore says that by keeping NORTA's equipment the same as other properties and agencies, it helps lower the cost of the vehicles.

To assist in safety and security, an automatic vehicle locator (AVL) system is being tested on 10 NORTA buses. The AVL may also be helpful with weather concerns, Moore says.

"That AVL system has the ability for us to directly contact vehicles that are en route. We can actually view what's going on, in and around the vehicle with our surveillance cameras. And we can say ‘OK, operator, we see from the camera above your head projecting out to the front door that you're in water up to the front step. You need to pull that bus off that line.'"

NORTA gets its weather information from the New Orleans area television stations.

"We have a unique system here with our local TV stations that they have all kinds of the latest technology and Doppler radar, and they came out with a new type of radar. ... It projects the steering currents for the storms, and it will actually illustrate that the storm is heading this direction but it's going to turn eventually because the steering currents are coming in.

"All the local news stations have all the latest technology and all we do is just follow their lead."

Hot, hot, hot and ... Monsoons?
Michele Joseph, spokesperson for SunTran in Tucson, Ariz., says SunTran's first weather concern is extreme heat.

"Keeping the air conditioning functioning in that extreme heat [is a challenge], and of course when the humidity rises, the challenge increases. The heat is a concern because our passengers need to be sheltered while they're waiting for a bus to come."

Joseph says right now only about a third of SunTran's stops have shelters.

"(Heat) also causes a problem for our drivers because passengers are seeking shade and so they'll kind of creep back to a building or a tree — away from the bus stop — and that makes it difficult for the drivers to see that somebody is actually waiting."

Joseph says in addition to the blazing heat, Tucson also has a monsoon season every year. She said the season comes in the summertime for about six weeks around July and August and causes flash flooding in the streets.

"We obviously have to respond with a detour if there is flooding. They're already established and prepared and when we become aware of flooding, whether a coach operator out on the street becomes aware or if we are aware from dispatch communication that happens via the radio system, they flip over to the flood route."

Joseph says SunTran only detours affected routes, which change with every flood. "What happens in Tucson is you've got these very small microbursts where it may be pouring rain down the street and it may be totally clear a mile away. ... It can be very centralized in terms of the flooding so we really just concentrate on the routes that are affected."

Air conditioning systems could be improved to better withstand extreme temperatures, Joseph says.

"Here in Tucson, we had a record-breaking summer. June was the hottest month on record ever. And this summer we've had 39 consecutive days of 100 plus temperatures. So developing A/C systems that operate and withstand that extreme heat is really important — something we'd like to see."