Los Angeles commuters next week will be greeted with a bus so long, it's technically illegal.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is set to unveil a 65-foot-long bus -- longer than four Toyota Priuses parked end to end -- to debut on its Orange Line busway.
It is five feet longer than the longest bus allowed by California law, so the MTA had to seek an exemption from Caltrans to operate the prototype.
"When you get inside, the middle aisle looks like a bowling alley," said MTA spokesman Dave Sotero.
But those extra five feet give the bus three extra rows of seats and the ability to hold up to 100 passengers, while the current 60-foot models on the Orange Line can hold up to 84.
The bus comes in two sections with a flexible, accordion-style center that allows the bus to bend around turns.
It is part of a new trend in recent years of transit agencies around the world ordering longer buses for their commuters.
In Shanghai, officials recently started using massive three-section articulated buses that hold up to 300 people.
In London, articulated buses are so successful that they have replaced the iconic, red double-decker buses.
In L.A., articulated buses were tried in the 1980s but quickly disappeared because of mechanical problems with the accordion-style linkages.
In 2005, a new generation of the buses was introduced on the Orange Line busway in the San Fernando Valley.
Since then, the MTA has placed articulated buses on other popular routes along Wilshire Boulevard, Western Avenue, Vermont Avenue and Van Nuys Boulevard.
Transportation officials say the higher-capacity vehicles provide relief on crowded buses navigating congested streets. The more people a single bus can carry, the less crowded each bus will be.
Such relief is necessary on the Orange Line, which during rush hour can already be packed when it begins its journey, either heading east from Warner Center or west from North Hollywood.
"The purchase of these long, articulated buses is born out of necessity, and the necessity is driven by the overwhelming success of the Orange Line and some of our Metro Rapid lines," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who was an advocate for creation of the Orange Line.
"Just adding more service is not always the best solution," Sotero said. "If you can increase the bus' capacity on an existing corridor, you help in reducing congestion by carrying more riders at the same time."
