First of all, I applaud Metro for adding an option to the honking huge vans. The scheduling software relied upon rarely puts more than one wheelchair on a given set of trips and the vans are a waste of resources for the majority of trips. I do have some questions about how these vans operate and am looking forwards to getting these questions answered by seeing the vans in action. Why is the driver hanging on to the passenger rear door while the ramp is being deployed? If this is SOP: those doors are going to be scragged in nothing flat. Metro already had a big van version requiring driver interaction in holding a door open and the results were bent and broken doors and ramps because drivers couldn't be bothered to deal with holding the door while the ramp deployed. Second cause for concern: what happens if the ramp fails? And don't say it won't. They will. They ALL do. Is there a manual override? How much of a pain is the manual override to actually use?
@SamuelMoore