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250px The Bus, established by Mayor Frank Fasi, is Honolulu's premier mass transit system. It was twice honored as America's Best Transit System before being banned from the American Public Transportation Association competition. Other cities felt they could not compete against Honolulu.
A bus is a large wheeled vehicle, intended to carry numerous persons in addition to the driver. The name is a shortened version of omnibus ("for everyone").
The omnibus, the first organized public transit system, may have been originated in Nantes, France, in 1826, when a retired army officer who had built public baths on the city's edge set up a short stage line between the center of town and his baths. When he discovered that passengers were just as interested in getting off at intermediate points as in patronizing his baths, he shifted his focus. His new voiture omnibus ("carriage for all") combined the functions of the hired hackney carriage with the stagecoach that travelled a predetermined route from inn to inn, carrying passengers and mail. His omnibus featured wooden benches that ran down the sides of the vehicle; entry was from the rear.
Whether by direct emulation, or because the idea was in the air, by 1832 the idea had been copied in Paris, Bordeaux and Lyons. A London newspaper noted, July 4, 1829, that “the new vehicle, called the omnibus, commenced running this morning from Paddington to the City” This bus service was operated by George ShillibeerBorn in London, England ca. 1797, George Shillibeer was a Coachbuilder who set up a business in Paris, France; where he was commisioned to Build some buses of "novel design". Whilst in Paris Shillibeer concluded that operating similar vehicles in London w.
In New YorkThis article documents the history of New York City part of present day New York State. For the history of the State of New York, see the article History of New York. Prehistoric era About 75,000 years ago, during the last ice age, the area of present day, omnibus service commenced that same year, when Abraham Brower, an entrepreneur who organized volunteer fire companies, established a route along BroadwayThis article is about the street in New York City. For other articles with the name Broadway, see: Broadway (disambiguation). Broadway as the name implies, is a big, wide avenue in New York City, New York, and is one of the main north-south thoroughfares starting at Bowling GreenBowling Green is a small public park in Lower Manhattan at the foot of Broadway next to the site of the original Dutch fort. It is the oldest existing public park in New York City. At the present time, it is probably most known for being the location of t; other American cities followed suit: Philadelphia (1831), Boston (1835), and Baltimore (1844). Typically the city governments granted a private company— generally a small stableman already in the liveryA livery is a uniform, worn by a person. In the time of Chaucer "livery" referred to an allowance of any kind, but especially clothes delivered ( French livree to servants and members of the household. Such things might be kept in a " livery cupboard. or freight-hauling business— an exclusive franchise to operate public coaches along a specified route. In return, the company agreed to maintain certain minimum levels of service, which did not include upholstery, however. The New York omnibus moved right into urban consciousness. In 1831, New Yorker Washington IrvingWashington Irving ( April 3, 1783 November 28, 1859) was an American author of the early 19th century. He was born in New York City. A lawyer, he served as American ambassador to Britain and later to Spain. He spoke Spanish. He was a prolific essayist who could remark of Britain's Reform Bill (finally passed in 1832): "The great reform omnibus moves but slowly”. "Omnibus," crayon and watercolor drawing by Honoré DaumierNadar) Honore Daumier ( 1808 1879) was a French caricaturist and painter. Born in Marseille, he showed in his earliest youth an irresistible inclination towards the artistic profession, which his father vainly tried to check by placing him first with a hu, 1864 ( Walters Art Museum)
The omnibus had repercussions both in society and in urbanization. Socially the omnibus put urban people, even if for only half an hour, into unheard-of physical intimacy, squeezed together knee-to-knee in a democratic press that even the most liberal-minded of the middle class had scarcely experienced before (illustration, left). Only the very poor remained excluded. A new division in urban society now came to the fore, dividing those who kept carriages from those who did not. The idea of the "carriage trade," the folk who never set foot in the streets, who had goods brought out from the shops for their appraisal, has its origins in the omnibus crush.
And the omnibus extended the reach of the North Atlantic post-Georgian, post-Federal city. The walk from the former village of Paddington to the business heart of London in the "City" was a good brisk stiff one for a young man in good condition. The omnibus offered a further availability to the inner city of its nearer suburbs.
More intense urbanization was to follow. Within a very few years, the New York omnibus had a rival in the streetcar: the first streetcar ran along The Bowery , which offered the very great improvement in amenity of riding on smooth iron rails rather than clattering over granite setts, called "Belgian blocks." The new streetcars were bankrolled by John Mason, a wealthy banker, and built by an Irish contractor, John Stephenson. In urbanization, the streetcars, rather than the omnibus, held the future key.
When motorized transport proved successful after ca 1905, a motorized omnibus was sometimes called an autobus.