Transpo '72 - Mass Transit

Mass Transit

Although much of the show was organized to highlight the US's high-tech efforts, the UMTA was also involved in a number of more "down to earth" projects, including the selection of new busses and trams for existing mass transit networks. Three major projects were ongoing, the US Standard Light Rail Vehicle (LRV), the SOAC, the "State-of-the-Art Car", a prototype subway car that included all of the most modern features, and the Transbus urban mass transit bus.

Many of these were being worked on with Boeing Vertol, who showed both the prototype SOAC car and the design of their LRV. Similar vehicles were also being developed by other aviation firms, especially Rohr. Rohr was showing their own subway cars that were being produced for BART and the initial models of their proposals for the Washington Metro, as well as Transbus designs from their recently purchased Flxible bus division, who were working on what would emerge a few years later as the Flxible Metro.

The government's funding of the aerospace firms to present at Transpo led Pullman to pull out of the show, complaining that the government was "playing wasteful politics by needlessly fostering the entry of companies from the depressed aerospace industry into the rail transit equipment business."

Motor Coach Industries (MCI), a Canadian and U.S. bus manufacturer controlled by Greyhound Lines, used the show to introduce their MC-8 "Crusader" motorcoach, an intercity coach. The model became so popular with both large and small bus operators that General Motors lost its position as the major manufacturer of such buses in North America, exiting the market entirely in 1980, two years after MCI updated the product with its MC-9 model.