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Rapid bus transit a cheaper alternative to rail
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Kai Ryssdal: Let's take a quick second here and do a little word association: I say "bus." You say what? Slow? Crowded? Late? All of the above?
Buses don't necessarily have the best reputation. But a new kind of bus line is popping up across the country. Bus Rapid Transit, dedicated lanes separated from the rest of the traffic flow. All in the name of providing the speed and comfort of rail, just with rubber tires on regular pavement.
From the public radio collaboration "Changing Gears," Dan Bobkoff continues our series on the Future of Transportation.
Dan Bobkoff: Enrique Penalosa is about to take his first ride on Cleveland's bus rapid transit.
Enrique Penalosa: The bus comes this way or it goes that way?
The station's in the middle of a major thoroughfare called Euclid Avenue. Penalosa's paying attention to all the details.
Penalosa: Exclusive lanes...
Buses have their own lanes and special traffic lights to speed through intersections.
Penalosa: Prepaid stations, prepaid boarding.
You buy your ticket at the station so you don't have to wait in line as people fumble for change. And the platform is at the same height as the bus so you can walk right on.
Sound of bus bell
It even sounds like a train.
Penalosa: The whole thing looks like it has been done with care and love.
That's a real compliment. See, Enrique Penalosa is kind of the guru of bus rapid transit these days. A decade ago, he was mayor of Bogota, Colombia. The buses then were congested and unorganized.
Penalosa: Complete chaos, traffic jams.
And, virtually overnight, his administration built what many consider the gold standard of bus rapid transit.
Penalosa: Yes, we did it from zero. From scratch to operation in just three years.
Just three years. Think about that for a moment. In one term as mayor, Penalosa managed to plan, build and open a public transit system that moves 1.7 million people a day.
That's been impressing transit officials in the U.S. too. They face shrinking budgets for their grand plans. That's why Los Angeles, Kansas City and Eugene, Ore., have recently launched bus rapid transit. And Joe Calabreze of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority says it worked there too.
Joe Calabreze: We spent about $200 million. If it was rail, it would have cost about $800 million.
Cleveland's route is called the HealthLine. It's a nine-mile connection between downtown and a neighborhood with major hospitals and the city's cultural center. The construction devastated many businesses along the line, but since it opened two years ago, development is picking up. Estimates peg more than $4 billion in investment -- at least in part spurred by the buses.
Steve Bland: I've been to Cleveland three times and I've been to a couple of others and Cleveland and the Euclid Avenue corridor, we can all learn a lot from what they've done there. It's truly impressive.
Steve Bland runs the Port Authority of Allegheny County, that's the transit agency for the Pittsburgh area. That city also has a university and hospital center disconnected from its downtown, and the hope is bus rapid transit could link the two and help the struggling neighborhood in between.
David Wohlwill: Here we are in the uptown area.
Uptown is that struggling neighborhood. I'm on a bus with David Wohlwill in Pittsburgh. He does planning for the Port Authority.
Bobkoff: So this is really a community that could go either way.
Wohlwill: Yeah, and I'm very optimistic that it's going to go forward, in part because of the high level of transit service.
But John Norquist of the Congress for the New Urbanism says that while cash-strapped transit agencies love cheap bus rapid transit, there's a perception problem.
John Norquist: Americans think of it as Greyhound and Trailways. And if you can't afford to ride on the train, or you can't afford to buy a car, then you ride on Greyhound. So it's kind of stigmatized.
The stigma against buses is so bad that when Joe Calabreze of Cleveland's transit agency talks about the HealthLine, he doesn't even use the b-word.
Calabreze: We don't call them buses. We call them rapid transit vehicles.
Catchy right? Jim Anderson riding the HealthLine one morning wasn't impressed with bus rapid transit.
Jim Anderson: Added trees and flowers. Still gets me from A to B.
You can't please everyone. But overall, the HealthLine seems to be working. The transit authority's Joe Calabreze says ridership is up 56 percent over the old, traditional bus route.
In Cleveland, I'm Dan Bobkoff for Marketplace.
Ryssdal: Take a peek at what bus rapid transit looks like, how those dedicated lanes work with regular traffic and hear other stories in our Future of Transportation series.
I can see that. Rail is also more efficient because there is less resistance from the steel wheel on steel rail unlike tires. I don't think a lot of people realize that. BRT is also restricted to speed limits (usually 35-50 lightrail can do 65-80) so no its not as fast as rail. and when you think about the fact that a bus driver could have been drinking the night before and not be fully there while everyone's life is in his hands, or maybe he/she has health problems and has a heart attack on the job and veers off and kills everyone in the bus. With a fixed guide way (rails) there is less chance of running off and crashing into anything unless of course someone is stupid enough to stop on the tracks.
Rubber tire contact with the road results in rubber dust that resembles nano-particles that are carcinogenic to the lungs. Solid rail wheels may be more noisy but more safe to the lungs. Yes, I am suggesting that all rubber tire traffic should be discourged!
I disagree. I firmly believe that we get what we pay for and having been a frequent rider of the Orange Line BRT in the San Fernando Valley, CA I would say It is a shortcut option that discourages riders.
For instance: I own a car, I ride transit by choice but if I were to take the orange line from one end to the other it would take me twice as long as if I were to be on the redline. This alone discourages other "choice riders" Another problem is that the buses are always so full of people that I almost always have to stand. Also negative is how gerky, bumpy & loud the buses are. Sometimes I have to wait for the next bus because the bus that comes by is full. the solution to that would be to run 2 or 3 buses right after the other to add service but the more buses you add the more it costs Metro to pay every union bus worker to drive those buses, the additional fuel, and usage of the bus's life in the over time. So in the long run the cost to run BRT would climb significantly on a high ridership line over time. The cost wouldn't be as much as rail but with rail comes more "choice" riders which means more income, less drivers on the road & more of a REAL alternative to driving.
>thought< I'm all for unions, they have helped grow our middle class and have made sure employees are treated fairly and live well but I do not like that the bus drivers union is always pushing against rail as if rail was going to completely end the need for buses. Its a bit selfish if you ask me. Buses are important for local routes around town but when it comes to long distance trips there is nothing safer, faster & more comfortable than rail (with dedicated ROW. I'd say its worth the investment. . . .
Now dont get me wrong BRT is a great idea for areas with less ridership. There are places where rail is not a good idea for the opposite reasons brought up.
When an agency/company takes the "cheaper option" to shave some quick bucks it ends up costing more in the long run in therms of fare/profits not to mention the headaches delt with when having to fix the problems.
BRT should NEVER be seen as an alternative to TRain Rapid Transit.
or vise-versa. BRT is simply a faster option to riding the buses running on surface streets.
36 reasons why streetcars are better than busses:
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/06/03/36-reasons-that-streetcars-ar...
Not cheaper than rail. Not better than rail. It is the same old bus, just given a few bells and whistles.
Without true, dedicated bus highways with grade separations, it is just another bus. Even, BRT it is not as good as a train (Just ask the folks in Ottawa, who had a true grade separated busway, and now are building a light rail line.) Not better than rail.
Not cheaper than rail. To carry 800 passengers, you need one train or 15-20 buses. That's one train driver salary versus 15-20 bus driver salaries. That's strike one against buses. Also, buses only last 12-15 years, even with rebuilding. Train cars can last 30 to 40 years with rebuilding. Strike two.
Trains may cost more upfront, but they are much cheaper over time, per passenger, per mile carried.
The fact that "buses can be redirected as population centers shift" is wrong. Trains make sure that population centers DON'T shift. They encourage development due to that very fact that a bus route can be changed by some bureaucrat on a whim. Train lines are anchors for the community. Strike three.
Trains can be pollution three at the source. Strike four, but why continue? Three strikes and you're OUT.
Actually the "cheaper than rail" is not a good selling point. "Better than rail," is the point. Better because buses can operate in exclusive rights-of-way -- or anywhere the road system goes. Better because buses can be sized to provide more frequent service. Better because buses and busways make possible a variety of service options that are difficult or impossible with rail, such as feeder service that becomes non-stop express, with no change of vehicle required. And yes, better because the lower capital and operating costs means that a more extensive system can be constructed with the same dollars.
The story fails to mention the long term operating costs of buses vs. rail. In Atlanta, the operating cost of the city's heavy rail system is only $0.32 per passenger per mile. Whereas the city's buses cost $0.72 per passenger per mile to operate.
Rail is much cheaper to operate over the long run.
A train can carry far more passengers than a bus. A typical bus can carry 40 people whereas a train can carry 1,000. Economies of scale favor the train.
You can find comparisons of operating costs of various types of transit on the Federal Transit Administration website.
To see how different transit types compare in your city, go the the National Transit Database at the link below and search for your city.
The article indicates that the Healthline in Cleveland has "dedicated lanes separated from the rest of the traffic flow. All in the name of providing the speed and comfort of rail". Healthline riders can make the 9 mile trip from Downtown Cleveland to University Circle in aprox 20 minutes, on the RTA's hybrid rapid transit vehicles. That is pretty good considering there are about 20 stops along the corridor.
It's nice to see Cleveland’s Health Line setting a national example for bus rapid transit.
"Cheaper" isn't the point. If the BUS has to sit in the same traffic as the cars it is supposed to replace, who wants to use it? It's not just about the rail, but the HIGH-SPEED part. Rail should be cheaper when the drive is too long by car/too slow by bus, but the distance is short of being cheaper to fly.
