Berkeley shows the political problems of bus rapid transit
The Seattle region has been tied in knots over transit planning since the mid-1960s, when the first opponents of rail transit surfaced, mostly based at the University of Washington. It's easier to attack a proposal than to have to defend one, which is one reason opponents of rail have had an advantage. Factor in populist suspicion of large, arrogant agencies and the hilly landscape, and you've got Impasse Transit.
Skeptics such as former Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald normally propose a better way to spend all those rail dollars, namely on buses, vanpools, and bus rapid transit. They make a compelling case, at least on paper.
The problem is, the alternative case is hypothetical, assuming a wise transportation agency that is able to build bus rapid transit. In fact, for all the logic behind bus rapid transit, you end up having to fight it through block by block, a little like clearing streets in Baghdad. You have to pry a dedicated lane away from automobiles and trucks, or from curbside parking. You have to change traffic signals. You need to create large park and ride lots, which neighborhoods don't want. Little wonder that we've made little progress on this idea and that Metro, which ought to embrace it, instead is dragging its feet.
To glimpse the messy future of non-rail rapid transit, consider the case of Berkeley. Plans for dedicated bus lanes on busy Telegraph Avenue, south of the Cal campus, have touched off a broad revolt, complete with an initiative that would require voter approval for any high-occupancy vehicle lanes in the city. As a public service, I hereby present a preview of the arguments that would soon be exported to Seattle:
Lots of money to save just a minute or two compared to ordinary bus trips.
Forcing traffic and parking onto side streets.
Death knell to businesses along established streets.
Better to spend the $400 million on cleaner buses, express buses that don't need dedicated lanes, or a new rail rapid transit route.
In short, in Seattle as in Berkeley, all right-thinking people are opposed to cars and in favor of transit. So long as it's the next proposal, not the current one, that is.
Comments:
Posted Tue, Jul 8, 6:06 a.m.
Eyeman's Current Initiative Will Abort BRT: In addition to the arguments against Bus Rapid Transit that David Brewster enumerates above, Doug MacDonald and other proponents of BRT forget that this year's initiative from Tim Eyeman places such severe restrictions on HOV and Hot Lanes that they will be effectively eliminated. At best there would be a short window during the morning and evening commute hours when HOV lanes would be operational. Beyond that it would be Bus Slow Transit as usual. It is reasonable to expect that Eyeman's initiative will pass. To get around the Eyeman restriction would require dedicated BRT Lanes with no other HOVs allowed. Seizing existing road lanes for BRT is a task only the congenitally naive would undertake.
Posted Tue, Jul 8, 12:32 p.m.
Depends on Your Definition of Bus Rapid Transit: David Brewster says, "Lots of money to save just a minute or two compared to ordinary bus trips."
It depends on your definition of Bus Rapid Transit. To deserve the name, it should have a dedicated roadway with flyover or flyunder intersections, so that it keeps a schedule like a train and doesn't share the roadway. It's truly rapid transit with buses and could save 50% of the trip time during congested hours. For a good example of this in a city shaped much like ours, see BRT in Quito, Ecuador. It runs north-south from the suburbs to the core city, while buses connect east-west on arterials. The problem is not BRT, but a watered-down version with traffic and stoplights.
Posted Tue, Jul 8, 12:47 p.m.
Your topic title says it all. There really should be only 1 definition of BRT, as you describe. Buses in separate lanes with its own right of way and no stop lights. There is no such thing as watered down BRT. It's just bus service when it gets watered down.
But here in Seattle, where the folks at the Discovery Institute (Intelligent Designers) have engaged in a multi-year propaganda war, they've confused the entire issue and done nothing positive to move debate forward. They are the ones who have confused the planners and media into calling Express bus service BRT. As you say, it's wrong, wrong, wrong. But they keep doing it. Furthermore, the people who are behind this propaganda war with transit really have no desire to implement anything. Their goal is to kill off light rail, which they have been very unsuccessful at doing. Namely because people know that bus service is inferior to train service, despite what some right wing think tank may say. Buses running in traffice (even pretty buses), are still just buses stuck in traffic, as you point out.
Richard
Posted Tue, Jul 8, 5:06 p.m.
The Pro-BRT/Anti-Rail advocates, and I-985: It will be very interesting to see if any of the Intelligent Designers and other BRT champions/light rail bashers join in fighting Eyman's latest, Initiative 985, if it makes the ballot in November.
Limiting HOV lanes to 30 hours a week, on highways and arterials where congestion can occur during many OTHER hours, is just not a very bright thing to do. Eyman even reduces the carpool minimum to 2 persons, on all roads -- there goes the SR-520 lane, which has to be 3 people/carpool to keep traffic moving.
Given his poorly-worded definition of what constitutes a carpool lane, I wouldn't be surprised to see him try to open up the downtown Seattle bus tunnel, or the bus-only ramp on SR-599 at the Metro bus base, to general traffic during "offpeak" hours.
But again, the real question is: Will the BRT advocates put their money where their mouth is, and work to defeat this flawed piece?
Posted Tue, Jul 8, 7:07 p.m.
Waikiki is 1.5 miles long from 3 bridges to Kapahulu Ave. Former Mayor Harris implemented exclusive bus lanes and narrowed roads by 33%. It caused havoc and accidents. So ridiculous to see big tourbuses have to go back and forth 7-8 times to make a turn because the mid-road islands were too close to the intersection side streets. The bus drivers learned quickly where not to even try making turns.
The mayor even planted trees on side streets, so that fire engines
could not make turns where the trees were planted too close to the
intersections. While the private sector was raising these concerns,
the fire departments went along and made noise after the project was
finished. So much for advance planning.
One man was killed during construction. The traffic slowed so much that our drivers lose average of 5 trips a day. The slowdown, is unavoidable since there are only two roads going west.
Seattle should be very concerned.
Posted Tue, Jul 8, 8 p.m.
a dozen ways to make bus travel faster: The comments before this one have a single minded focus on just one of the dozen ways to make door-to-door travel using the bus faster ... exclusive bus lanes, preferably that a non-bus vehicle cannot enter under any circumstances. This is the single most expensive and difficult technique to move buses faster, and the one that rail advocates like to harp on with their banal palaver about "Real BRT."
The common sense of any daily bus rider backed up by millions of dollars in research by the U.S. DOT Federal Transit Administration reveals these other ways to make travel by bus faster, without building exclusive busways:
1. Deploy buses and bus stops closer to the origins and destinations between which people travel ... meaning more bus routes to more places where people want to go, so that people can get more quickly to and from the bus stop that gets them aboard the bus.
2. Increase the amount of distance between bus stops to approximately one half mile, so that buses don't have to stop so often. Obviously this technique requires a balancing act with the previous technique, since some people have to walk further.
3. Increase the frequency with which buses operate -- lower the amount of time between buses in the schedule. And then use real-time monitoring and radio instructions to the driver to avoid bus-bunching, the well-known tendency of buses running frequently to clump together one after the other.
4. Decrease the amount of time spent by customers entering and leaving the bus -- reduce dwell time. This means paying fares more quickly or paying the fare before boarding the bus. It also means buses not so crowded that people have trouble getting to the door of the bus to exit.
5. Provide real-time information on actual bus locations and the amount of time left before the bus reaches a bus stop, so that customers do not get to bus stops too early and have to wait, or arrive late and miss the bus.
6. Design bus stops with curb extensions reaching out to the bus travel lane so that buses do not have to pull in and out of traffic flows in the course of serving customers. In other words, bus bulbs.
7. Use radio signals and computers to have the buses turn or keep traffic lights green when the bus is behind schedule ... transit signal priority. It works. Sound Transit's train to the airport will use it on 18 traffic lights along the tracks.
8. Use a variety of traffic and lane management techniques to keep all traffic moving, most of which is not buses, but which includes buses. This includes HOV lanes, HOT lanes, business access and transit (BAT) lanes, quick incident response/clearance, and road user fees with off-peak discounts to motivate a shift in driving to less crowded times.
9. Let buses use right-only lanes even though going straight ahead, to get closer to the front of the stopped traffic at a red light. This is a queue jump lane.
10. Create a timed-transfer system facilitating transfers between buses at transit centers, where buses arrive and leave in waves, like the airliners at at a hub airport where connections between flights are made, thus reducing waiting time to transfer.
11. Eliminate parking in the curb lane used by buses during rush hours when the roads are crowded, but not during other times, when traffic is flowing well enough in all lanes.
Modern transit systems using all of these techniques and others can create constantly improving transit more quickly at less expense throughout the transit network compared to obsessing over raising taxes for exclusive bus lanes and light rail.
Google for "Elements Needed to Create High Ridership Transit Systems"
TCRP Report 111, sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration for more, much more.
Posted Tue, Jul 8, 8:23 p.m.
RE: a dozen ways to make bus travel faster: I'm disappointed, John; perhaps you didn't see the challenge posted above yours, about what you and your BRT-over-rail colleagues are going to do about Eyman's latest, Initiative 985, that keeps HOV/HOT/BAT lanes in service only during the height of weekday peak hours -- and turns them into General Purpose lanes at all other times, regardless of traffic conditions.
If I-985 gets on the ballot in November, are you voting Yes or No? Do you intend to expend resources in support of your position?
Posted Wed, Jul 9, 1:32 p.m.
The debate several years ago over the 545 Express bus route to Redmond clearly showed the political problems with trying to run 'BRT' over Capitol Hill, the densest urban center in the state. It was condemned as too slow and too unreliable. In the end, I had to agree with them and I negogiated a compromise with the Eastside interests to place one bus stop for the 545 on Capitol Hill. Primarily the intersection at Broadway and John was too congested and backed up, affecting reliability. The turn at the bottom of Capitol Hill from Denny onto Stewart was also unreliable because it backed up with traffic. The entrance ramp to 520 east and the approach going North on 24th Ave was also unreliable because it backed up with traffic.
Riders knew this and the route was not modified because of this. However, this 545 route change perfectly met the criteria of the 'BRT supporters' to implement better bus service. But where were they? No where. They would not support this change. Why? Because they're really not about doing anything with bus service. It's all just chatter. Idle, empty talk. All hat and not cattle, so to speak.
Will they step up to fight the Eyman initiative this Fall? We shall see. I wouldn't bet the farm however.
Richard
Posted Wed, Jul 9, 5:15 p.m.
BRT does not meet the transit need: David Brewster's article is right on the mark.
The "dozen ways to make bus travel faster" that John Niles lists will in no way significantly increase the speed or capacity of bus travel in the region. Several of the suggestions have already been implemented, others would be difficult to implement and others would simply not help much.
The region is experiencing and expecting significant growth. Buses on existing roadways are simply are not going to be up to the task. If we're going to go to the trouble and expense of building new right-of-way, then we might as well use the more efficient, less polluting rail. Yes, it is expensive and it takes time, but at least it will be an effective and desirable solution.
Part of me wants to see the Eyman initiative pass just to illustrate once and for all the benefits to ALL of HOV travel.
Posted Wed, Jul 9, 9:03 p.m.
RE: BRT does not meet the transit need: Yes, Niles' dozen ways are just working around the margins, even in total, they don't replicate the speed, capacity, reliability, or permanence of rail transit.
And they certainly don't represent the Long Range solution that rail does. Sooner or later, the service will begin to degrade as the lanes and crossroads become more and more crowded. PSRC is predicting, what, 30% more people in the region in the next 20 years? All competing for the same ROW, including the lanes that we've tweaked up to provide some measure of improvement for buses?
And Niles' vision is a house of cards, just waiting for another Eyman initiative to come along and blow it all down -- not with votes from Seattle of course, but from Wenatchee, Spokane, Tri-Cities, etc. who know little and care less about conditions in Puget Sound country.
BRT in the Niles' vision is just not a substitute for a rail backbone on the trunk corridors connecting the region's largest Urban Centers. THAT is a job for rail.
Posted Sun, Jul 13, 6:24 p.m.
buses rock: This responds to comments aimed at me from "R on Beacon Hill" (Roger Pence, a Sound Transit community relations professional), and "transit guy," who is Rich Borkowski, co-founder along with Roger of the rail-advocacy association People for Modern Transit.
My summary response to these articulate advocates, and to hoohah, is that published evidence from the National Research Council, from Federal Transit Administration, from university researchers, and from experience across North America and the world shows that buses on a managed road system can provide all of the transit capacity needed in a modern urban region like central Puget Sound.
Read the available research-based evidence, such as that available by clicking on the links in the Doug MacDonald series on regional transit here in Crosscut. If what you see tells you that subways under Seattle and Bellevue and a floating bridge trackway between them is the way to go, then by all means, support Sound Transit's Prop1 Do-Over to double its tax collections.
However, first thing, ST should be made to demonstrate that the first few billion dollars worth of the track works as promised. Along with the editorial boards of several of the region's daily newspapers, I am against Sound Transit going to the ballot to double its taxes for more track until it has completed and operated the first phase of the Seattle-centric light rail spine, the line going from the downtown shopping district to the Airport.
We already know that light rail in Seattle takes longer to build and costs more than originally promised, but we haven't seen how well the trains and other traffic will be coordinated through 18 traffic lights, 272 trains per day through three gated crossing in the SODO industrial district, and mixed with buses in the downtown tunnel. By 2010, if ST is performing, doubling its taxes for light rail should be a piece of cake for the agency.
If the expansion of light rail toward the goal of the 125 mile system focused on serving downtown Seattle sought by Mayor Nickels were stopped in the next ST tax election, I suspect it would be because voters realize that these trains do not provide THEM with travel choices that they would ever use, and thus they won't raise their taxes to pay to build the rest of this system.
I quite agree with Roger Pence that the dozen ways I describe above to improve bus service amount to working around the margins, where margins can be taken to mean the part of the region outside Seattle. Yes, my list won't replicate the speed, capacity, reliability, or permanence of rail transit in a $500 million per mile subway tunnel under Seattle.
(Note: I'll hold back judgment on "permanence" of the tracks on the I-90 floating bridge until all the technical examination is done for controlling the stray current and vibration effects.)
But unless you happen to live AND work near a future train station, you may prefer better bus service NOW, not trains that arrive years and billions of dollars LATER.
The Sound Transit plan of raising taxes by billions over several decades to gold plate a small part of the vast regional transit network for increased capacity, speed and reliablity covering just a small part of the region's geographic area is positively nuts compared to spending much less money to make incremental improvements to bus service quickly over the entire geography of the region, including mostly ALL the places where people live, work, and play, not just the relatively few acres around ST's train stations.