Bus Rapid Transit: Easy to Build, Easy to Destroy

[marmar]

Bus Rapid Transit: Easy to Build, Easy to Destroy
Dan Malouff | Greater Greater Washington



[font size="1"]The Shirley Highway in Northern Virginia, which gradually opened its once-exclusive bus lanes to cars. Credit: Aaron Landry on Flickr[/font]


Planners often promote bus rapid transit (BRT) as cheap to build and more flexible than rail transit. But that flexibility also makes it even cheaper to dismantle. A stroke of the pen can completely destroy a BRT line.

Even the highest quality BRT systems run in lanes that could just as easily serve regular drivers. All it takes is one government decision to allow private cars on a BRT busway, and then blam: What you have isn’t really BRT anymore.

That’s exactly what may happen in Delhi, India, where the country’s supreme court is considering forcing the city to open up bus lanes for automobile traffic, amid complaints from drivers that it’s “unfair” to dedicate lanes to other road users. Delhi has 16 million residents, and fewer than 20 percent of them use cars. Nevertheless, it’s a serious possibility that the court will open the busways, effectively outlawing BRT.

Here in the Washington Metropolitan Area, we have our own local example of a BRT line that has been systematically downgraded by being opened to cars, reducing the quality of bus service. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://americancity.org/daily/entry/bus-rapid-transit-easy-to-build-easy-to-destroy

[nxylas]

1. Linky no worky

I got a database error when I clicked on it.

[marmar]

2. Works fine for me.

nt

[nxylas]

3. Me too now

The site must have been down temporarily when I tried before.