My First Take On Bus Rapid Transit By James Oliver Smith Jr First, I want to make it clear that I am no proponent of Bus Rapid Transit as a backbone transit mode. I see bus technologies (street buses, articulated street buses, Bus Rapid Transit) as a secondary mode of transit that is useful in sparsely populated corridors or a as a feeder system to sweep neighbors to transport riders to some form of rail transit (streetcar, light rail, rapid transit, commuter rail, inter-city rail), which I see, collectively, as primary arterial corridor transit modes. As a type of bus, Bus Rapid Transit is just one form of bus in a range of technologies that provide transit service on roads, which use the infrastructure built around the car. Bus rapid Transit, or BRT, is a part of the car culture, just as any other form of bus. I want to emphasize, however, that BRT vehicles are still buses and therefor shares many of the limitations of all other bus technologies with respect to mass transit. I say this because there is a fair amount of talk, especially from those who are opposed to rail transit, that BRT is “just like”, “or the same as” rail transit. The argument is that rail transit is “expensive” and that buses are “inexpensive”. If all of the publically subsidized construction, management and maintenance for the car-culture are ignored I suppose it is easy to delude oneself into thinking that bus technologies are free, since they use the pre-existing, heavily public subsidized, car-culture infrastructure. But that is the flaw in much of the thinking surrounding the discussions of mass transit in the United States, in general, and in the Twin Cities, specifically. That fact is, that all of that heavily public subsidized infrastructure for the car-culture is expensive, very expensive, at many levels. A useful discussion of effective mass transit cannot be conducted without considering the full cost of the car-culture that bus technologies depend on. Then, the impact of buses on that infrastructure also needs to be considered, because they inflict a significant amount of stress on that infrastructure, in addition to contributing to the congestion that buses are ostensibly intended to reduce, not to mention that buses are impeded by the very same congestion that they are contributing to. It is very easy to fall prey to some rather nefarious circular logic in which the opponents of rail transit simply say that, if you want to reduced congestion, then build more lanes and add more buses and that will allow more cars and buses and that will relieve congestion, which, in turn, encourages more people to use cars, not buses, because the car-culture is designed for cars, not mass transit. The efficacy of the “add more lanes” argument rests on the notion that all of those “lanes”, and all of the construction, organization, management and maintenance needed to support those “lanes” is somehow “free”. They’re not! When you factor in all of the costs of the car culture, rail transit, over all, in the long term, is significantly less expensive to construct, manage and maintain. It is the hope of rail transit opponents that a name like “Bus Rapid Transit” would convince the public that bus technologies can be the backbone of urban mass transit. This is the main concern I have when I hear discussions about mass transit. The perception that Bus Rapid Transit is somehow the “same” as light rail, and since the car-culture is somehow “free” and rail transit is somehow more expensive contributes to a rather perverted logic that says “light rail is a waste of money”. When I read blogs around the United States at transit authority web sites, the rail opponents are out in force spreading the myth of the “free bus” transit and the “expensive” rail transit rhetorical paradigm. It is such a ubiquitous form of rhetoric that I even hear people who use public transit buses complain about the cost of light rail, saying things like, “we could buy a lot of buses with that money”. Then I ask that bus person, “Did you know that one three-car light rail train can transport the riders of ten 40 foot street buses?” and they’ll say, “No, I didn’t know that.” They also don’t think about the fact that light rail trains ride on their on dedicated track, not limited by the congestion present on the streets. Light also does not contribute to the deterioration fo the streets. They run on tracks that reduce stress on the vehicle as well as the passengers. This results in longer lasting vehicles and happier, more comfortable riders, not to mention that it attracts new riders, who would never consider public transit unless rail transit is in the transit mode mix. In the Twin Cities, there are several proposed Bus Rapid Transit lines that are either in use, under construction or being proposed. The only BRT line in operation at this point is the Red Line, which operates between the Mall of America and Apple Valley. I have been wanting to check out this technology to get a first-hand look at what Bus Rapid Transit is all about. So, I took the Blue Line light rail down to the Mall of America and boarded a Red Line BRT bus and rode to Apple Valley transit center and back. My first observation? A bus is a bus. A bus by any other name is still a bus. The ride is just as rocky as any street bus and it still has to navigate a lot of traffic, even when it uses dedicated lanes. What are the positive characteristics of Bus Rapid Transit? The most obvious advantages of Bus Rapid Transit bus are in the design of the bus itself and certain assumptions on infrastructure necessary for boarding. The isles in the BRT bus are wider. There is more legroom for passengers. The seats are more comfortable. These are great features, but there is a tradeoff. There are fewer seats. In terms of efficiency and effectiveness, boarding and exiting are designed for speed, comfort and accessibility. BRT buses are designed with a low boarding profile that assumes there will be a platform that the bus will pull up to. At each door is a Go To Card scanner so that users can walk on/roll on, scan the card and find seat or position a wheeled chair in one of the wheel chair spaces. It is my understanding that the A Line BRT line to run on Snelling Avenue in St Paul starting in the summer of 2015 will have fair box transactions (GoTo Card scanning) on the platform itself. This is the same paradigm used with light rail. In either case, the GoTo Card scanners on the bus and the platform based fare box transactions, the driver is freed from the responsibility of operating an onboard fair box, as is found on Metro Transit buses. This are all significant advantages for Bus Rapid Transit over regular street buses. There are no advantages of light rail. But once you get on a BRT bus, the experience is still that of a bus. The fact that there are fewer seats and much more room taken up with larger isles and a much more restricted space than what is available on a rail vehicle, buses will not be able handle large volumes of riders with the efficiency and effectiveness of rail transit. The other enhancement that Bus Rapid Transit brings is increased frequency, but this is more of a change in the service, not a technology dependent feature. The frequency of any line, BRT or not, can be increased and garner greater rider satisfaction with no new technology or infrastructure, but that doesn’t change the fact that BRT is still a bus and will always be a bus, and therefore, will not attract people who are not currently already using buses. But it would make the existing ridership happier. I would very much appreciate all buses being equipped with these BRT features, especially the greater frequencies. I remain skeptical about BRT in the higher density corridors of the Twin Cities and I think that ultimately, Metro Transit will need to convert BRT to either streetcar technology or light rail in order to effectively handle high population density corridors. I feel that BRT is better suited to the lower density corridors found in the suburbs, where the population is scattered over a wider area with transit stops miles apart. Light Rail transit is too big for many of the narrower, high density population corridors, making streetcar technology a more appropriate fit. Hennepin Ave, Lyndale Ave, Nicollet Ave, Central Ave, Lake Street would all be good candidates for state of the are street car technologies. Overall, I think Metro Transit has an effective plan in place to use all modes of transit, selecting the mode most appropriate for each corridor. There is a place for Bus Rapid Transit. I just don’t expect it to attract the ridership rail transit will attract. Rail transit transportation modes are the only modes that will attract the levels of ridership needed to have any chance of relieving the congestion that has risen up in the world of the car-culture. Bus transit is only effective if it is a conduit for riders to get to rail transit. There was nothing about the Red Line that fosters any desire, within me, to live in the suburbs or use BRT. My basic rule for public transit trips is: use, at most, one bus to get to light rail and one bus, at most, after light rail, in the course of a trip. If a trip requires more connections than that I don’t make the trip. The Bard of Franklin Avenue
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 00:58:34 +0000
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