What happens when you realize too late you should have built light rail, instead? You blew it all on BRT and you have to pour more into the BRT sinkhole. You lose most of your BRT investment and still have to make the LRRT investment. Using BRT to test whether you need LRRT is foolish.
@@citizensforregionaltransit2681 look at our plan (Winnipeg, Manitoba's) Winnipeg Transit Master Plan. it's BRT for the next 20 years. info.winnipegtransit.com/assets/2768/WTMP_Phase_3_Zoom_Presentation_2020_FINAL.pdf
@citizensforregionaltransit2681 Not necessarily. On the LA Metro system, the 18 mile Orange line has been a very successful BRT, and they've made upgrades to get the line ready for light rail down the road. This BRT readily connects to the B subway line. And it will connect with a future 9 mile long light rail line, that's already approved, at Van Nuys to better serve the San Fernando Valley.
The HealthLine BRT in Cleveland has completely transformed Euclid Avenue, and spurred development throughout a corridor that was completely left for dead 20 years ago. It has been a real game changer to be sure.
I don't want to be a downer, but I heard that the HealthLine has been watered down a lot in the past years, such as with the removal of signal priority and off board fare payment, as well as a large reduction in frequency. Is it still reliable?
@@aynt_2065 The reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated. It is not perfect, but it still has signal priority and hasn’t had a reduction on frequency as far as I know. All of the downtown stations have off board payment, and if there is any real disruption in frequency it really has everything to do with drivers not understanding how dedicated lanes work and thinking they are turn lanes. I usually take the Red Line to get around as the stops are closer to my house, but it is still making a ton of money in ROI and is still running as smoothly as can be expected.
BRT should compliment frequent rail services, not replace them. BRT is perfect for suburban branch lines or connector routes between larger services. It's not an excuse to avoid building a rail-based backbone to your city's transit network, even if you're planning to upgrade your busway to a Light Rail system later down the line.
San Antonio is definitely guilty of creep when it comes to the BRT lines it has. Its first line, Route 100 Fredericksburg seems like a proper BRT line. But Route 102 Military and Route 103 Zarzamora are basically regular bus routes that run more frequently than the others.
That Adelaide guided busway you showed at 0:56 is quite the interesting system. The history behind it is that the greater Adelaide area experienced significant growth during and after WWII, and thus so did the number of vehicles registered. By the mid-1970s, transportation had become a problem in the northeastern suburbs. This led to a study that concluded that a light-rail would be the best option. However, there was opposition because people thought it would interfere with the well-designed layout of the city proper, and that light-rail vehicles would be too noisy. In search of a replacement for the light rail project, they examined the O-Bahn system in Essen in what was then West Germany by Daimler-Benz. The system was seen as far superior to previous proposals because it was flexible, used less land, made less noise, they viewed it as faster and as mentioned here as a reason for BRT, it cost less. In addition, its unique feature of a non-transfer service direct from suburban streets to the city center made it more attractive. With this system, the buses use a guide-wheel, which protrudes just ahead of the front wheels. It is connected directly to the steering mechanism and steers the bus by running along the raised edge of the track. Adelaide's track is 12 km/7.5 mi long and includes three interchanges at Klemzig, Paradise and Tea Tree Plaza. With its interchanges, it allows buses to enter and exit the busway and to continue on suburban routes, avoiding the need for passengers to transfer to another bus to continue their journey. Not to mention, the O-Bahn has sump buster devices to prevent cars. The O-Bahn has caused a clustering of commercial and community development near the Tea Tree Plaza Interchange, as service-providing organizations and businesses have of course sought to exploit the area's easy accessibility to public transit and the city center. Market imperatives have also been aided by the zoning of the land around the area as commercial rather than residential. The large Modbury Hospital is adjacent to the interchange, and the Torrens Valley campus of TAFE was built directly to the east of the busway after it opened
Taking this from the Twin Cities angle, where BRT costs have been standardized and we've been building a lot, it is a good stop gap to improving transit in the US. Even BRT-lite solutions with a solid emphasis on standardized high quality stations, as per the Twin Cities BRT stations, you can quickly and cheaply build out a network in a few years. We are already 5 lines in and going down the alphabet for each new line. Rochester MN is even building a BRT line with up to 5 minute frequency and dedicated lanes! I don't think the ITDP's standards should be taken without scrutiny though. They think fare gates on BRT is better than proof of payment, which is definitely wrong. Great video once again!
This video does a nearly perfect job of discussing BRT. There are only two slight problems however that needed more screen time, 1. BRT costs more than light rail after 10-15 years due to all the extra maintenance. This is extremely important. We are trading off slightly lower (20-30% lower) construction costs vs light rail for much higher operating costs into perpetuity! This is a rotten deal. And the BRT line costs even more if it becomes popular and needs to expand capacity. You can always add a second car to your light rail trains. You can't with BRT. You need more operators which are by far the most expensive part of transit. 2. We need to pay more attention to BRT creep. If we can't fix it then BRT is not for the US. Yes, the video talks about it, but still not enough. There are no US "BRT" systems that measure up to the international standard. None. Literally all of them were watered down below real BRT status. It's like a watering down epidemic in the US! It is infinitely easier to water down BRT projects in general, and our political system is uniquely apt at watering down projects. This is exactly why our politicians and transit planners absolutely looooooove BRT. It's not just that it's cheaper in the short term with the high costs being hidden in future budgets. It's the fact that they can build some substandard turd and still pretend like they've built a "rapid transit" line.
That's because the BRT in Pittsburgh actually has its own dedicated routes. Often cities just put busses on regular roads in mixed traffic and call it "BRT".
I think a question that small cities should ask is if they should save money for a future light rail network, because once costs are out of the way, light rail is just better.
Cincinnati Ohio is building two BRT corridors (Reading Road and Hamilton Avenue) starting next year. They are planned to run every 10 minutes (and then interline from University of Cincinnati to the Riverfront, thus every 5), use mostly dedicated lanes, transit signal priority, level boarding, off-board fare collection, and electric articulated buses. I think for Cincinnati, BRT is very good because it's something that can actually get built instead of the many good idea but failed proposals for light rail. Cincinnati and Ohio are both very hostile to transit so the fact that Cincy has an option that can improve transit at all is very good. SORTA (Cincy's transit authority) is very interested in TOD for these corridors to get more ridership. I hope to see things go well for it and not get watered down. The Streetcar is rail based transit for Cincy yes, but it is almost entirely in mixed traffic with no transit signal priority, and it's much more limited in how far it can go than BRT will be. I think Streetcar expansions that are not redundant with the BRT would be very helpful for serving more of the main urban core area though.
Also it's worth mentioning that much of the cost of LRT and rail is the alignment. Full bus-highway type BRTs are generally not that much cheaper to build than light rail or metro despite offering lower capacity and much much higher labour costs. BRT is good as an enhancement for existing, well-used bus services or as a transit improvement for smaller cities but definitely not as a discount transit solution for all of our transit problems.
That is so far from reality it's insane. The cost to build LRT in the US averages between $500M and $1B per mile. You may sincerely believe in reaction that's not possible and is pure hyperbole, but it is literal fact. One look across the main big cities and the cost they've paid and you'll be confirming this as fact. BRT? Try averages between $2.5M to $60M per mile, depending on what kind of ROW you're building. If it's just paint and nothing else (not counting priority signals, as I'd see that as a separate part of the system not part of the ROW/lanes), it's always really cheap to do.
@@TheCriminalViolin Making blanket price comparisons between BRT and LRT without considering the various forms of both modes is misguided. BRT and LRT are incredibly vague terms. For example, BRT can refer to anything from "nice bus shelters with intermittent bus lanes" to "completely dedicated right of way with zero intersections, no other traffic and massive stops with pedestrian bridges". Both of these are "BRT" yet they provide very different levels of service and come at very different pricetags. LRT can refer to "trams running in the middle of a street," "subway but for trams" or anything in between. Once again, the level of service provided and cost are all different. $500 million to $1 billion per mile refers to LRT projects which are basically subways but with trams instead of metro trains. The service provided by these is simply not comparable to an average median BRT and as such this price comparison is completely meaningless. A more reasonable price for surface light rail that is more comparable to the service provided by a typical median BRT is around 100 to 200 million per mile. (extensions to the Minneapolis LRT system were around 120-130 million per mile) This is still more than a BRT but you get higher capacity and lower staffing costs. The US already pays inflated costs for rail systems compared to the rest of the world. Also if you read my original comment I said "Bus Highway type BRTs." These are in no ways comparable to your average American BRT.
@@williamhuang8309 See my comment on this video if you want to see what TRUE BRT is, and what LRT in the US usually refers to, which is far from real LRT.
@@TheCriminalViolin Some of your points are valid but some of them miss the point or exclude important information. 1, 2 and 3 (BRT is high capacity and BRT is cheaper): BRT can operate at very high capacity similar to light rail, but this ignores how ridiculously expensive it gets when you try to push BRT beyond what it was intended for. An articulated bus generally has a capacity of 100 people while a short LRV has a capacity of 210 people and a long LRV has a capacity of over 500 people. Many LRT systems in the US will also couple two or more LRVs together for double or triple the capacity. This means that BRT requires 3-5x the number of drivers and 3-5x the number of vehicles as LRT to meet the same capacity. On lower demand routes this isn't an issue but for higher demand routes it makes sense to use larger vehicles (i.e. LRT). It's also very difficult to operate a route at extremely high frequency without complete grade separation since intersections and the like can cause bunching and other issues. So BRT can't be a replacement for a very busy LRT system. There's a reason why Bogota (a city famous for its extensive and popular BRT system) is building a metro system parallel to one of its BRT routes. When you start operating your BRT system at maximum capacity with buses coming every minute, the cost of drivers really starts to add up, especially since drivers make up to 75% of a BRT system's operating costs! And having a massive conga line of buses isn't great for a city Centre. For example Adelaide's O-Bahn busway has buses every minute but during rush hour, the streets in the CBD become completely swamped with buses making it difficult to navigate, and in Auckland, the CBD has far too many buses running into it which results in slow and unreliable travel times even with bus lanes, which is why the council was looking to build LRT to reduce the number of buses. 4 (BRT is more flexible): Yes, BRT can be easily rerouted and changed. This is a legitimate benefit to BRT when it comes to service disruptions. But in the long term, this benefit is diminished as a BRT that can be easily rerouted lacks permanence. A phenomenon that has been happening across the US is BRT Creep, whereby due to the flexibility that BRT offers, the service provided by a BRT has been reduced and whittled down over time until the BRT is barely a BRT at all. Of course, in a perfect world, BRT creep wouldn't happen but we don't live in a perfect world. Land use decisions are based around transportation, but because BRT lacks permanence in that it can easily be reduced over time, less TOD will happen which reduces the effectiveness of the transit. It's important to think of transit not only as a transportation tool, but also a tool for development. Transit planning and land use planning go hand-in-hand, a transit plan with a bad land use plan is a wasted opportunity. 5 (real BRT cannot be affected by traffic because of dedicated ROW and traffic enforcement): Dedicated rights of way certainly help to reduce the effects of traffic but the only way to achieve complete immunity from traffic is complete grade separation. This applies to all modes of transport. Intersections can become clogged or there may be a lot of pedestrians crossing which slows transit down. Simply fining people tens of thousands of dollars (aka their entire annual salary) is simply unrealistic and would do more socioeconomic harm than good. 6 (BRT can cross lines): This is not something which is exclusive to BRT but rather something influenced by transport network planning. Plenty of tram lines across the world cross lines (look at the tram diamonds down Swanston, Elizabeth, Collins and Bourke streets for example) and plenty of LRT systems across the US have routes that split into branches or recombine at-grade. Flyovers and underpasses are mostly useful when operating at extremely high frequency but in other cases it's okay to have grade crossings. What you then proceed to describe just seems to be a normal, well-run bus service (minus the traffic enforcement bit). A well run bus service should have frequent buses, isolation from traffic, and nicer amenities for passengers. If that is your example of a BRT, you can't compare it to LRT because they serve completely different purposes! Your example of a BRT is an improved bus service with nice stops and dedicated lanes while LRTs provide a higher order transit service meant for higher demand connector routes. When it comes to planning transit, there is no such thing as a silver bullet transit solution. Different corridors have different requirements, different ridership, etc. BRT can be better than rail in some circumstances, but in other circumstances, LRT or metro can be better than BRT. Transit corridors should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and the best mode should be chosen based on the needs of the route, not trends or whatever is the cheapest option. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve with your transit system. Many of the routes that US cities have built LRT on aren't suitable for LRT and should instead be scoped up to light metro or suburban rail, or scoped down to BRT, but just because the implementation of a technology is bad doesn't mean that the underlying technology is bad. LRT and trams are best used for short to medium distance, high demand routes such as inner city connectors (the Melbourne trams) or orbital lines (Paris tramways). BRT was originally intended to be a higher-order transit system for smaller cities providing faster service, much better frequency and a slight capacity improvement over a normal bus, but pretending that it is the perfect solution for all transit problems is simply unrealistic and fantastical. At the end of the day, all transit solutions have their uses and no one transit solution is universally better than any other (unless you're talking about gadgetbahns like monorail, pods, hyperloop).
@@williamhuang8309 That last portion mostly agrees with me and my stances. I am entirely Anti-light rail unless it is a complimentary service to other transit modes, aka, what you ironically just described. Serving the original purpose of looping or going through the high density urban cores of large cities, with short lines. But that's just not how the US ever does it. They almost always look at say TriMet's MAX Blue line, and implement a mimic of that line in their cities. That's not LRT just because they say it is and they use LRVs. That's a metro or subway line, or even a IC heavy rail service (commuter/regional). That's a huge problem and not acceptable ever. And again, there is no defense of spending a billion per mile, not even $500M per mile, for something like LRT, given that you're often paying equivalent price and sometimes slightly cheaper for full scale HSR lines that go for 60-300 miles. No matter what anyone says, that's a unalterable fact.
Another great video. Two things you missed. A drawback is even if you’re running articulated buses, there’s only so much capacity on those vehicles, so light rail will have less labor costs as one operator can move more people. The one benefit is, for burgeoning systems, if implemented correctly, it can be upgraded to light rail if demand warrants.
I think brt systems are generally overlooked by urbanists, brts are awesome and if done right they can be comedically good. A good example is istanbul metrobus, its awesome. Line is around 45 miles in lenght and uses buses in 4 different size smallest being 60 feets long THE SMALLEST! And the longest ones system uses are 82 feets long bi articulated buses. There is also plans to use 130 feets long buses from crrc's art series on the line. Other than buses frequency on metrobus is excellent, in the rush hours buses runs on every 15 SECONDS and this means your buses must have great performance and istanbul really take that seriously, in fact istanbul municipality take role in development of newer buses on the system. And of course system has great ridership with around 800k riders DAILY on average and over a million riders on some days A MILLION dont forget that most used metro line in istanbul, m2 line, usually has around 650k daily riders which is crazy in fact metrobus is the second most used transportation way in the istanbul after regular buses. Thats why i think brts are awesome.
This was super informative and inspirational. I just moved to Norfolk VA and the city itself does have a light rail line but Chesapeake to the south of Norfolk is entertaining BRT and I'm so disappointed that it's even a thought. Initially to the best of my knowledge, they wanted to connect to Norfolk's light rail. Nothing changed about that publicly but this week a post was made on Instagram saying that they were studying Richmond's BRT to see if it's a "good fit" for Chesapeake and I'm like "WHUT!? what about the train!?
BRT is great for those corridors that have ridership that standard buses are finding difficult to cope with but not quite busy enough for rail. It's also good to build ridership along corridors that could make great rail corridors down the road. BRT allows a city's populace to get a taste of rapid transit and can be the great tool in building transit ridership. But, as you said, most cities just end up building a regular "limited" bus route, which negates all the benefits of BRT, namely the "rapid" part. "Rapid" doesn't mean "faster", it means "rapid". Without the "rapid" part, which includes not only the speed, but also the fast boarding and alighting, you end up with a regular "limited" bus route which won't build high ridership, it won't increase transit ridership, because to those who have a choice, it just looks like the buses they already avoid and ends up not doing much to increase access or offering meaningful alternatives to driving.
The brt opened in Winnipeg as the blue bus and has been really good, especially the frequency during rush hour which is around every 3minutes. So I would say if implemented correctly it’s a good way of rapid transit
Awesome video and glad the random footage I got while in Albuquerque made it into your video. I will have to get more footage of my adventures for future videos. And if you ever make a Rio Grande Plan video I can get whatever footage you need!
Charleston, SC is building a Bus Rapid Transit line which I at first thought was silly, but after reading through their environmental survey I understand it. A private company owns the rail ROW and didn't want to share with light or heavy rail.
I do feel like LCRT is a great solution for the city but I feel like a light rail system, no matter the cost, would be a huge game-changer for the city in the long run. LCRT is still a great opportunity for the city and I hope that it expands to its full extent as soon as possible.
@@autumo_ it's a quality start! I've started planning out what I would want from a light rail to connect downtown, North charl, west ash and Mt. P. CHS is wealthy enough to afford this. The traffic situation is awful and a light rail would be great for tourists trying to see things like patriots point
My problem with BRT is using it as a cheap alternative to actually building true rapid transit, for example with rails and/or on a segregated right of way - unless you REALLY are strapped for cash or something, BRT as a replacement for trams or god-forbid a heavy rail metro system just isn't sustainable - Bogota and Jakarta are proof of that, they will need a proper metro system. BRT should always be 'buses AS rapid transit', a standard and program for improvements to bus services, applicable everywhere. There's no point building a bespoke bus guideway on one section, when a red painted road will do fine. Or using special vehicles, special fare payments or limiting the kinds of service that use a particularly upgraded section of bus infrastructure. Most of the time so called 'Gold Standard' BRT isn't even using trolleybuses. It should just be BUSES.
Speaking of the GRTC Pulse, I actually got to ride it when I was still living in Henrico County, VA. My only wish is that they should really extend the Pulse line to the airport, And maybe have one on West Broad Street.
All great points! Calgary's initial BRTs weren't much except a few queue jump lanes that give the bus a head start at a traffic light. It's since morphed into two new BRT lines that have dedicated right of way through much of the routes (MAX Purple and MAX Yellow). It doesn't have full signal priority, but it does have the sensors (as do most heavily trafficked bus routes) that will extend a green and overall be aware that a bus is waiting, and shorten its wait. Only part of Calgary I've experienced that buses have to wait at a light for 2+ minutes is at the intersection of Crowchild Trail and Kensington Road NW. It's a terrible highway with a traffic light that divides the community.
Even though there are dedicated lanes, the bus service may not be significantly faster than before. It still runs on surface after all. Some BRT lines went back to local bus service only such as Las Vegas MAX on N. Las Vegas Blvd. The Cleveland HealthLine example is often mentioned in many videos, I have been on it, but I don't find it amazing. Stops are frequent just like local bus. Everyone still has to pay or swipe a pass at the farebox. What's annoying is that island platforms will require riders to board at the middle (front) door and then walk up front to pay. If I were to ride HealthLine end to end, Red line subway is still better and faster. In some cases the BRT route just replaced the local and limited stop bus routes altogether. For example, AC Transit Tempo on International Blvd, it may be faster than the 1 bus, but slower than the 1R. There are some BRT amenities, but stops are frequent. Worse part of all, it runs parallel with the existing BART line, no one would spend an hour to ride the BRT from Downtown Oakland to San Leandro while BART is available. If insisit on taking the bus, even bus 40 on Foothill (few blocks away, just a local bus) seems faster than the rapid bus on International.
sounds like BRT creep. Partially implemented but called BRT despite not being it. Full BRT would have stops every 1/4 or 1/2 mile, pre-paid all-door boarding...
MY COUNTRY GUATEMALA APPEARED THERE (TRANSMETRO), sadly, this project along with transmilenio (in bogota) has doomed our cities to not have a proper public transportation system.
Can you do a video on the LA Metro Orange BRT. Looks like there are plans to spend several hundred million to upgrade it. Construction starts this year. It seems like a unique project from the little data I've been able to find. Once the upgrades are complete, it seems it will be the most light rail like BRT in the country. Thanks.
Love the San Francisco footage. But did you know that San Francisco recently built a BRT route, on Van Ness Avenue? Now, it ended up costing a lot more than a BRT should for one of the same reasons the Union Square/Chinatown Muni Metro line did - because they had to replace the >100-year-old sewers at the same time. Unfortunately, I hardly ever take Van Ness Avenue - there's just nowhere that way I need to go on the regular. The last time I did, for a series of weekly appointments at a physical therapy clinic up that way, was while it was still under construction. I got to eagerly watch its progress over that time while being stuck riding a bus in even more constrained car traffic while that was happening. But I have had a couple of opportunities to ride it, and it's _great_ - a *huge* improvement over how things were, and a clear demonstration of the inherent superiority of the bus vs the car for moving large numbers of people through a traffic corridor, now that one can compare them side-by-side. One lane of bus moves _so_ many more people _so_ much faster than two lanes of cars. And I've heard a lot of criticism that BRT isn't the way to go and it should be light rail instead. But for that to make sense to do on Van Ness, it would have to replace all of the bus routes that currently roll there, which means building new light rial _all over._ Which I'd love, of course - but seeing how hard it was to build just _one_ short (too-short) new Muni Metro line, I really don't see that happening. I'm afraid that, for the next decade or two anyway, BRT is the tool for the job on Van Ness. Though there are improvements to be made.
@@CraigFThompson I've heard tell of it from time to time, haven't kept up with it. I think a tram line, like the N-Judah, would be better - there's certainly enough demand. And unlike Van Ness, which is a central spine for several bus lines that go all over the place, the 38 Geary is all there is, afaik (again, I don't head out that way, like, ever, so I may be missing something)
BRT is good for middle cities in particular, however too much cities build BRT instead of tram/light rail to save money while it would be more adapted. For instance in France we are building a lot of BRT whereas it does not always respond to the needs for instance the TVM in Paris suburb.
Really awesome vid as always and I enjoyed the cat animations. One bit of feedback is i think there were just a few too many instances of super quick text pop ups that I think distracted from the video a bit
I live in DC so the two main BRTs in the DC-area (Flash BRT by RideOn and Metroway by WMATA) are uh...interesting lol. Metroway sadly lost a lot of its utility when the Potomac Yard Metro station opened, since it's main goal was to connect local areas of southern Arlington and northern Alexandria with fast growing density. The biggest of those developments was Potomac Yard which...now has a Metro station like I said. On Richmond Highway/US-1, it has center-running bus lanes which is pretty cool and the stations (besides the last stops at Pentagon City/Braddock Road Metro stations) are definitively nicer than most Metrobus stops. Unfortunately, there's a lot of mixed traffic segments so even though it's not on the BRT Standard, i'd struggle to call it anything other than Basic. Flash BRT is more interesting and far more useful since it extends northeast from the Silver Spring Metro station up into upper Montgomery County via US-29 and has two lines. The lack of dedicated lanes for most of the route on both lines significantly hurts it sadly, as does the questionable signal priority, but it's still a surprisingly fast bus for what it is, and gets decent ridership to the point where RideOn is adding more Flash BRT lines which is neat. I would still call this Basic BRT though lol. In conclusion, DC BRT is not great, though our local busses are improving at a fairly rapid rate thanks to the ever-increasing amount of bus lanes in the city. There's a reason that DC is known for Metrobus/Metrorail and not the BRT lines is all I'll say lol.
I agree that BRT can be great but has its place. While large cities and metros with a population of 5 million+ shouldn’t even consider substituting high capacity metro lines with BRT (see Bogota), smaller cities and medium sized American cities can use it to quickly improve their transit network and cut down on travel times significantly.
Would like to add that level boarding is actually a thing with buses installed with optical guidance systems which use lane markings (typically two tightly spaced dashed lines in the middle of the lane) to align the bus with the platform but sadly it's not a very common technology in NA, imo efforts should be spent on improving the existing bus network via measures like signal priority, bus lanes, increasing stop spacing to ~300m, increased frequency, more bus shelters and better route planning and they should serve as the arteries to a robust rail based backbone
Denver is STILL in the engineering phase of its FIRST BRT down Colfax, some 7 years after starting this current iteration. They’re going all out to engineer the perfect premium final product without knowing anything about how well it’ll work & how people will respond to it. This is my biggest issue: when you’re doing something for the first time, iteration & phasing upgrades typically creates a better end result (BRT creep UP!)-politics aside of course. The following lines can be created with more features based on experience from previous lines. Some lines don’t need
Colfax BRT, or a light rail through Colfax are sorely needed, the 15 and 15L don't provide the kind of service Denver needs running east/west. Would love to also see BRT on Colorado Blvd but who knows how long that'll take
@@emmaa138 City of Denver is designing and constructing the Colfax BRT (part of why it’s so expensive and long in coming), while CDOT is starting on both Colorado and Federal Blvd BRT. It’d be great if they would take an iterative approach and improve service in steps instead of waiting for a big pot of money, but that’s not the DNA of highway agencies.
Atlanta seems to be going all in on BRT for it's new lines, and is already seeing creep. Instead of all in its own ROW, now they are saying 85%. They did talk about signal priority, now, not so much. That is the huge problem with BRT. Politicians expect it to cost less and when it goes over their preconceived budget, they start slowly nibbling away at it until it's just a glorified bus that doesn't get you anywhere any faster. LRRT is a commitment. BRT done this way isn't
@@jamiecinder9412 true. I think the other issue is frequency. I took the bus from the doseum area to USAA once and it took an hour and a half. Most of it was just waiting between busses.
@@Darruus I actually used to live up the street from USAA. All of the bus routes that pass by the main entrance aren't frequent at all. And I can imagine it'd be difficult to get there from the vicinity of the Witte Museum.
My city has at least one BRT that's worthy of Silver ranking. It lacks the off board payment, but it has dedicated law ways, signal priority and digital information boards on the nice platforms telling us when the next bus is, plus other non BRT bus routes that run along the same road benefit from the same upgrades
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Denver Moves Transit plan. The regional transit authority, RTD, built out an impressive amount of rail service. The only problem is that so little of it serves any dense urban neighborhoods. Denver is planning to build out a strong BRT network to fill in the gaps of the rail lines and better serve its urban core. It seems like a good solution to a very suburban minded regional transportation network.
Since many bus routes don’t need BRT, but could benefit from some of these, a great video would be to review & rank each of them as they impact reliability, timeliness, safety, comfort, etc. helping viewers identify where in their systems these features could be added as bolt ones would be useful. Also include fare free zones or routes.
So excited to see my local BRT featured in your video (GRTC: Pulse) but bummed that you neglected to mention that it qualified as Bronze. For a while there, it seemed to have fallen off quite frankly but recently, they've made service improvements so all is good.
you should check out the OCstreetcar opening in 2024 in Orange County, California:) Also the transit in OC sucks! The bus frequency is every 30 to 40 minutes! unbelievable and what’s shocking is that Los Angeles is literally the neighboring County of Orange 😭
Orange County is automobiliated to the point of stupidity; they were granted almost a billion dollars in transportation funding, and they wasted most of it on widening Hitler's imported autobahn (the freeways in the county)! If that money were instead spent on rail, there'd be a light rail connection from the Crenshaw line straight to Disneyland with a single-seat ride!
I think BRT is great. I also think the "fake" BRT's, or enhanced services are great too. Sometimes it's not always necessary to get all of the BRT stuff. I would say where I seem to be disappointed with these systems are some of the headways.
San Diego has major BRT creep with their Rapid bus lines, but they also don't really call them BRT either. Partial bus/bike lanes on the 215 line that just runs down a stroad are an example
BRT is a tool like any other transit mode! Sometimes it makes sense for BRT, especially in cities where funding is limited and dedicated BRT lanes and service increases could make a significant different for the average rider. Other times BRT is somewhat of a cheap cop out for when Light Rail should really have been built, with much more permanent infrastructure that isn't so easy to strip away with defunding (BRT creep)
Albuquerque Rapid Transit has been great, and definitely has encouraged me to use transit much more than in the past. The level boarding critique is true, tho. For every ART driver that pulls the bus up to the platform perfectly, there are two that seem scared to even try.
If you have to build a new road for a BRT, then it's better to build a railway instead. If you are using existing roads, consider if it's possible to build a railway on some of the lanes. If a BRT has to be built, it could use trolleybusses to be more eco-friendly.
My mindset: build it small, then scale up as the demand increases Start with BRT. Any municipality can do that. Upgrade to Light Rail once the BRT system hits capacity. Then upgrade the Light Rail to a metro system once the light rail hits capacity. Pay for what you need, that way if it doesn't work out, you don't have as massive of a budget failure.
Howcome in areas where we need not a buss (DEATH BY HOT OR COLD) We only get a buss on a 3 hour schedual cause it's all alone on a route to windy and long to think about
for what i can think, one major problem on brt is in the actual city, cities are too big and dont have the mix use nescessarie to be able to create a robust and frequent brt while being afordable for the citie, i know there are places that did but most cant
It should be the best possible quality, such as the BRT in Latin America. The most expensive BRT is still more affordable than rail, so we should sacrifice absolutely nothing when we build BRT.
I think we should have nothing but BRT-buses and light rail in cities. Current structures - at least in Denmark - doesn't work, and delays are just happening too damn often for no other good reason than them not being prioritized over normal traffic.
@@CraigFThompson Well we do have trains of course so we can get from city to city (if that was what you meant) - but the transportation I meant was in the given city, locally.
In practice it seems that brt is often used as a compromisable compromise. Instead of light rail we get brt to save money. Except instead of brt that would be comparable to rail it's dumbed down to save more money... And the whole points gone. I'm sure in some places it makes alot of sense, when done right that is. But doing something like attaching brt to the end of a light rail line instead of extending it as you should is incorrect use of brt.
Shits a scam Our city is broke. They couldn't plow last winter. All it does is make congestion a lot worse. All speed limits now reduced, lanes are bus only. Bus stops on both sides of a lane. So yes 4 busses can all stop at the same time completely stopping all traffic. And now added tons of new stop lights.
Just stick with a standard bus, put the effort in the routes and shelters. Most BRT steal street space that is already at the max during the AM/PM rush. Most older cites don’t have the space.
That's all the more reason to use BRT: frequent buses move many more people than car lanes do. One lane is 900 cars per hour on city streets. An articulated bus every 2 minutes would be 120*30 = 3600 people. Of course, light rail could do even better: say every 4 minutes, 600 people * 15 = 9000 people/hour.
LA Metro needs to build better and more true BRT lines with dedicated ROWs. They need to replicate around the County what they did so successfully with the Orange BRT line. So they compliment access to the rest of the subway and light rail lines on LA Metro. It would help with the first/last mile issues too.
Yes BRT is the most underrated form of effective public transportation. The speed and low capital cost is incredible. Almost every case for BRT falls apart unless if you live in very high dense areas. As far as energy usage per passenger, I’d like to see real data for this because LRT may not have rolling resistance, but energy lost in transmission wires can’t be overlooked and buses are becoming more energy efficient. The BRT in bogota has a capacity of nearly 50,000 passengers per hour per direction. The capacity and productivity of BRT when done right is astounding and dedicated bus right of ways should be immediately integrated into almost all road networks and new developments should have a minimum number of bus only lanes. When you look deeply into the majority of arguments for rail over BRT is they just don’t think buses are sexy, and that’s insane. There are rail lines that have been built where they could have had 5 times the lane miles in BRT but people decided on rail for no logical justification.
Rail advantages: Much lower labor cost per passenger. Note BRT really takes off in low-wage countries. Nicer rides. Train on rail simply has less sway; a minor detail for me, but a big one for motion-sicknes prone people. Lower longer term costs: as mentioned, trains last much longer than buses.
I found this to as usual for transit and urbanist TH-cam be sorely lacking in legitimate examples of the pros of BRT, and almost functioning as a pseudo-light rail promo video. As a huge transit nut, and deeply entrenched in urbanism, this is a problem that is like a fast acting cancer in the community. Everyone's got this weird adoration and whoring out for LRT attitude and mentality. I think the most incredibly ironic part of it is just how much most of these video often coo & rave about how "state of the art" and "great" TriMet's MAX system is, when in reality, it's terrible and proves constantly why LRT is a horrible idea that deserves ZERO support, and BRT should be the go-to always. Allow me to give the list of pros BRT has that crush LRT. 1. BRT does not require or have a limit on how many buses can be ran, and how close together they can run either (they can form a conga line no problem unlike LRT) 2. BRT in reality can match and even top LRT in capacity per mile because of the prior 3. BRT is infinitely cheaper both in the short term and long term (yes it IS FAR cheaper than LRT overall through the lifetime of the systems) 4. Buses can detour and reroute if need be, whereas trains CANNOT. If something happens on the LRT system, it will strand and potentially cripple the line or system entirely until whatever it is is fixed or cleared. Buses do NOT have this issue at all. 5. TRUE BRT is also impervious to traffic congestion, as not only does it have it's own ROW or lanes the entire length of the lines, and priority signals, but a correctly and strictly enforced system with harsh penalties for violators would ensure even the most arrogant and rich of offenders stop interfering with the line (revocation of license or permanent ban on operating a motor vehicle of any kind on the roads alongside egregiously high fines that increase by 2x each violation until the third, where it would skyrocket in the territory of $50k+ fine alongside that permanent ban) 6. There is plenty of ability to have crossover with other BRT lines, rail lines, and other transit modes whereas with rail, you can't cross lines without either having a logistic nightmare, or, a really expensive set of stations with a flyover or under section for the crossings. 7. Plenty of other benefits including some you yourself noted in this video. When done correctly a true BRT system cannot be beaten at all by any other mode of transit, including any other types of bus lines. It just cannot be touched or competed with. Articulated buses are also key. You have to use high capacity buses, artics are always correct here because double deckers take noticeably longer to board and disembark. Here's the correct way to make a true BRT line: - Priority signals at ALL intersections. - Bus lanes the entire length of each line. - All buses have the systems on board that automatically capture photos and video clips of violating vehicles in the lane, which automatically generates a report and sends its to the respective police departments for enforcement - Strict, unalterable laws that offer HARSH penalties without ability to lower or otherwise get out of being charged with no matter what that are aggressively enforced by police (aggressively meaning quickly and sternly.) These penalties realistically would begin at around a $2500 fine for a first offense. $5000 fine and a one year suspension of your driver's license or permit for a second violation, with a third violation going up to $10000 fine, 3 year suspension of license/permit and impoundment of your personal vehicle of which the violation(s) were committed in. The fourth and final violation would be the one made specifically for the richest aholes with the most arrogance as only they'd be dumb and egotistical enough to even consider risking it, let alone do it a fourth time - A fine of at least $100K, permanent revocation of license without ability to be allowed to regain it ever again, and permanent impoundment of all personal vehicles (likely being sold at police auction). - Buses run AT LEAST every 8 minutes at peak times, preferably every 2 1/2 to 5 minutes at peak, with all other times being at least every 15 minutes, preferably every 10-12 minutes. Adjusting these times _slightly_ in less dense areas/lines is acceptable as this typically would result in lower demand and ridership. The key word is slightly. So instead of every 4 or 5 minutes, every 8 minutes is good at rush hour, with every 15 minutes being fine outside of peak demand times. But lines that connect to and through denser urban environments will need to be as frequent as possible in order to ensure all demand is met with allowance for some extra space on each bus. -All stops need to have the most basic amenities which are full covered seating, with room to stand as well as for at least two ADA users, at least one trash can, lighting, and a digital live time board/schedule. - HIGH quality buses and interiors on said buses (use TriMet as exactly how NOT to have your buses made/interiors done) - Ensure that along and around the lines, pedestrians have the same priority as the buses do at intersections (pedestrians being the same priority as buses is a imperative key to a properly made transit line and system) - Keep the stops and buses clean and well maintained at all times with no excuses. If needed, hire or select a portion of staff to form a dedicate team specifically caring for these BRT lines and vehicles All in all, inter-modality is imperative and key to a properly develop and ran metro area and city, not just a properly made and ran transit system. But people need to stop listening to all the "experts" who are consistently bought out and paid the big bucks by the lobbies of light rail (yes, it really does exist) and corporate development firms. Light Rail is NOT the answer, and it is far from this weird almost omnipotent mode of transit so many of the big urbanist and transit channels seem to always talk it up to be. It is more of a detriment than a quality mode of transportation. Factually speaking, LRT as the US makes it is NOT what LRT was even made for in the first place. True LRT is the old 1920s streetcar. Or the short historic trolley line. Think Portland Streetcar and The San Diego Trolley if you're looking in the US. THAT IS TRUE LRT. Slow, short loops and lines built specifically to *_COMPLIMENT_* BUS and REAL RAIL transit. NOT to function as it's own mode of transit. And even then they're still corrupted from the real purpose of LRT because they're not in the most high density urban core of massive cities. Toronto, NYC, London, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, insert-chinese-city-of-choice-here, etc. That kind of massive high density core city is exactly what LRT is made for to again, compliment real rail and bus in short loops around and through that main central core. Yet here in the US, LRT is always made to mimic TriMet's MAX system, and specifically the Blue Line, which spans almost the entire length of the metro area from Hillsboro to Gresham. That is what subways and metros are for. You know, medium and heavy rail. NOT Light Rail. For proper rail and rail stock. Even regional rail and a form of IC or ICE is better fit for such use and length than LRT. That's something that's always infuriated me as a transit whore and planning nut. And the hordes of people who consistently jump in to actively defend it with a fervor of sorts. Moreover, the cost of LRT? BILLIONS. The Orange line MAX cost us $7.9B for 7.8 Miles - 80% of which already had recently laid trackway along it. That's ONE BILLION DOLLARS PER MILE. Yeah, sorry, there's not a goddamn soul who will ever be capable of having anything close to a legit defense for such BS. And for anyone who wants to say, "Well that's ONCE for ONE CASE. It's one off, dude!" you're absolutely wrong. The Green line, the line built before the aforementioned one cost $5.6B to construct, which is roughly the same distance. That was built between 2010 and 2012. Each LRT line TriMet forces on us, we foot the entire bill, and it increases on average a solid $2B each time. And now with inflation? HAHAHA, kill me. Just shoot me. And as for the efficiency or consistency of LRT compared with BRT or even normal bus service? It's a fucking joke. MAX consistently has issues DAILY. Even throwing out the consistent cancellations due to the still persisting operator shortage, TriMet has always had to keep around a contingent of around 50-100 old retired buses in order to have them do MAX's job whenever a MAX line inevitably once again becomes SOL and completely stuck/stranded. Suicides, inattentive peds, cars stuck on tracks, collisions, accidents, medical emergencies, mechanical failures of the trains, failures in the pantographs, failure of the crossing gates, failures of the signals (this one is so stupidly persistent it's insane), bridge lift issues or failures, it's too hot to run, it's too cold to run, there's a little bit of weather and they can't run the line, etc, etc, etc. And again, rail is completely screwed anytime anything happens. It becomes immediately crippled and cannot function again until whatever the problem is is remedied. So guess what mode of transit has to come out and do the job of your precious light rail? Those dirty, old, "inefficient" buses. Whoops. Seriously, it's not remotely difficult to see how infinitely superior in every single way buses are to light rail, let alone rail transit in general when it comes to serving metro areas and cities themselves. Rail realistically should not even be a consideration unless it is a high population metro area, and it is entirely grade separated and medium or heavy rail.
Your entire argument is so flawed 😂 Like the logic is just completely lacking. 1st of all you're comparing utopian, unrealistic, "true" BRT to bad examples of realistic LRT systems. Like no NA city is going to get a "true" BRT system, just like how none of them have a perfect LRT system because thats just how transit design and funding works in NA. 2nd - point 5 is just absolute nonsense. LRT/Trams can interact with other modes much easier than BRT can. Expecially if you want your BRT to have those super high frequencies you talk about in point 1. There are systems around the world were LRTs run on mainline rail tracks or where trains run on tram/LRT tracks, look up tram-trains (Karlsruhe model) and train-trams (Zwickau Model). Or where buses run on LRT tracks. Plus so many cities have systems where different LRT lines share track for a portion of their route. 3rd - point is 5 unrealistic. The vast majority of BRT systems involve running either in regular traffic or have a ton of places where cars cross the BRT lanes. Meaning that they are still as subjectable to car traffic as any LRT with the same design. Plus if you then decide to put the BRT on its own road or guideway, you eliminate any benefits from buses being able to reroute and up the costs to a point where a tram/LRT would probably be cheaper 4th - point 4 is the same regardless if its a BRT or LRT that has been shut down. The experience taking a rail replacement bus is going to be basically the same as taking a rerouted BRT.
@@Gfynbcyiokbg8710 Everything you just said lacks logic. And as for the first thing you said, that would mean you're of the mind we just sit down, stop trying and accept the current status quo, unless it's LRT. Go figure. LRT fans are some of the biggest idiots out there, and they swear they aren't proving it ever time they open their mouths. That's not insult, that's observable facts. Believe whatever you want, but my god you're wrong.
@@TheCriminalViolinpeoples illogical criticisms of BRT is one of the biggest tragedies in making cities better. It can be done so quickly, incredibly cheaply, and have enough capacity for 99% of cases in America but people would rather have light rail because it sounds sexier. They put in around 18 miles of light rail in honolulu and have spent over 10 billion dollars and they have very little housing around the light rail line yet but are planning on doing TOD despite the fact Oahu has experienced no growth in population. They could have flooded the entire island where people live with bus rapid transit in a fraction of the time and enabled the land to be upzoned to townhomes and midrise apartments/condos. People basically make up excuses saying paying drivers would be so expensive but that completely discounts the idea that buses would be way fuller/faster leading to such higher levels of productivity that it offsets that point. If they would have put in BRT on every highway and high traffic corridor, it would have completely transformed peoples lives by now. But instead, people have waited over a decade and they’re spending almost half a billion more dollars to relocate the utilities on one single road to get ready for the rail to finally begin construction in the city where people live. I hope it works out but I feel like people are doing what’s fancy rather than what’s practical.
![ลองสุ่มไอโฟน 990 โกงมั้ย? [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.101 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfsWe0j492k/mqdefault.jpg)
I think BRT is ok but it should be built with provisions to allow for light rail if there’s enough demand and a higher capacity transit mode is needed
What happens when you realize too late you should have built light rail, instead? You blew it all on BRT and you have to pour more into the BRT sinkhole. You lose most of your BRT investment and still have to make the LRRT investment. Using BRT to test whether you need LRRT is foolish.
@@citizensforregionaltransit2681 look at our plan (Winnipeg, Manitoba's) Winnipeg Transit Master Plan. it's BRT for the next 20 years. info.winnipegtransit.com/assets/2768/WTMP_Phase_3_Zoom_Presentation_2020_FINAL.pdf
Tell that to the state of Indiana 😭
If only we need money to build a Light rail.
@citizensforregionaltransit2681 Not necessarily. On the LA Metro system, the 18 mile Orange line has been a very successful BRT, and they've made upgrades to get the line ready for light rail down the road. This BRT readily connects to the B subway line. And it will connect with a future 9 mile long light rail line, that's already approved, at Van Nuys to better serve the San Fernando Valley.
The HealthLine BRT in Cleveland has completely transformed Euclid Avenue, and spurred development throughout a corridor that was completely left for dead 20 years ago. It has been a real game changer to be sure.
I don't want to be a downer, but I heard that the HealthLine has been watered down a lot in the past years, such as with the removal of signal priority and off board fare payment, as well as a large reduction in frequency. Is it still reliable?
@@aynt_2065 The reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated. It is not perfect, but it still has signal priority and hasn’t had a reduction on frequency as far as I know. All of the downtown stations have off board payment, and if there is any real disruption in frequency it really has everything to do with drivers not understanding how dedicated lanes work and thinking they are turn lanes. I usually take the Red Line to get around as the stops are closer to my house, but it is still making a ton of money in ROI and is still running as smoothly as can be expected.
@@guitarkharma Well that's great to hear!
@@aynt_2065Off board payment point is moot as they have the EzFare app and smart card now, with validators at all doors on healthline.
That's great to hear.
As long as it doesn't become BST (busses stuck in traffic).
lol
BRT should compliment frequent rail services, not replace them. BRT is perfect for suburban branch lines or connector routes between larger services. It's not an excuse to avoid building a rail-based backbone to your city's transit network, even if you're planning to upgrade your busway to a Light Rail system later down the line.
San Antonio is definitely guilty of creep when it comes to the BRT lines it has. Its first line, Route 100 Fredericksburg seems like a proper BRT line. But Route 102 Military and Route 103 Zarzamora are basically regular bus routes that run more frequently than the others.
Jacksonville’s first coast flyer “BRT” now has 30 min headways 😭😭
That Adelaide guided busway you showed at 0:56 is quite the interesting system. The history behind it is that the greater Adelaide area experienced significant growth during and after WWII, and thus so did the number of vehicles registered. By the mid-1970s, transportation had become a problem in the northeastern suburbs. This led to a study that concluded that a light-rail would be the best option. However, there was opposition because people thought it would interfere with the well-designed layout of the city proper, and that light-rail vehicles would be too noisy. In search of a replacement for the light rail project, they examined the O-Bahn system in Essen in what was then West Germany by Daimler-Benz.
The system was seen as far superior to previous proposals because it was flexible, used less land, made less noise, they viewed it as faster and as mentioned here as a reason for BRT, it cost less. In addition, its unique feature of a non-transfer service direct from suburban streets to the city center made it more attractive. With this system, the buses use a guide-wheel, which protrudes just ahead of the front wheels. It is connected directly to the steering mechanism and steers the bus by running along the raised edge of the track. Adelaide's track is 12 km/7.5 mi long and includes three interchanges at Klemzig, Paradise and Tea Tree Plaza. With its interchanges, it allows buses to enter and exit the busway and to continue on suburban routes, avoiding the need for passengers to transfer to another bus to continue their journey. Not to mention, the O-Bahn has sump buster devices to prevent cars. The O-Bahn has caused a clustering of commercial and community development near the Tea Tree Plaza Interchange, as service-providing organizations and businesses have of course sought to exploit the area's easy accessibility to public transit and the city center. Market imperatives have also been aided by the zoning of the land around the area as commercial rather than residential. The large Modbury Hospital is adjacent to the interchange, and the Torrens Valley campus of TAFE was built directly to the east of the busway after it opened
Indianapolis has no choice but building BRT...and state politicians are trying to ban that, too.
Taking this from the Twin Cities angle, where BRT costs have been standardized and we've been building a lot, it is a good stop gap to improving transit in the US.
Even BRT-lite solutions with a solid emphasis on standardized high quality stations, as per the Twin Cities BRT stations, you can quickly and cheaply build out a network in a few years. We are already 5 lines in and going down the alphabet for each new line. Rochester MN is even building a BRT line with up to 5 minute frequency and dedicated lanes!
I don't think the ITDP's standards should be taken without scrutiny though. They think fare gates on BRT is better than proof of payment, which is definitely wrong.
Great video once again!
It’s interesting to see how they’re overlaying BRT with the expansive suburban express coach services
This video does a nearly perfect job of discussing BRT. There are only two slight problems however that needed more screen time,
1. BRT costs more than light rail after 10-15 years due to all the extra maintenance. This is extremely important. We are trading off slightly lower (20-30% lower) construction costs vs light rail for much higher operating costs into perpetuity! This is a rotten deal. And the BRT line costs even more if it becomes popular and needs to expand capacity. You can always add a second car to your light rail trains. You can't with BRT. You need more operators which are by far the most expensive part of transit.
2. We need to pay more attention to BRT creep. If we can't fix it then BRT is not for the US. Yes, the video talks about it, but still not enough. There are no US "BRT" systems that measure up to the international standard. None. Literally all of them were watered down below real BRT status. It's like a watering down epidemic in the US! It is infinitely easier to water down BRT projects in general, and our political system is uniquely apt at watering down projects.
This is exactly why our politicians and transit planners absolutely looooooove BRT. It's not just that it's cheaper in the short term with the high costs being hidden in future budgets. It's the fact that they can build some substandard turd and still pretend like they've built a "rapid transit" line.
The pittsburgh BRT are good for when they were built. They need some in motion charging trolleybusses tho 👀
That's because the BRT in Pittsburgh actually has its own dedicated routes. Often cities just put busses on regular roads in mixed traffic and call it "BRT".
I think a question that small cities should ask is if they should save money for a future light rail network, because once costs are out of the way, light rail is just better.
BRT Can be a good start, then at some point you can lay Overhead Wires for a trolley bus network, which will eventually become a Tram
Cincinnati Ohio is building two BRT corridors (Reading Road and Hamilton Avenue) starting next year. They are planned to run every 10 minutes (and then interline from University of Cincinnati to the Riverfront, thus every 5), use mostly dedicated lanes, transit signal priority, level boarding, off-board fare collection, and electric articulated buses. I think for Cincinnati, BRT is very good because it's something that can actually get built instead of the many good idea but failed proposals for light rail. Cincinnati and Ohio are both very hostile to transit so the fact that Cincy has an option that can improve transit at all is very good. SORTA (Cincy's transit authority) is very interested in TOD for these corridors to get more ridership. I hope to see things go well for it and not get watered down. The Streetcar is rail based transit for Cincy yes, but it is almost entirely in mixed traffic with no transit signal priority, and it's much more limited in how far it can go than BRT will be. I think Streetcar expansions that are not redundant with the BRT would be very helpful for serving more of the main urban core area though.
Also it's worth mentioning that much of the cost of LRT and rail is the alignment. Full bus-highway type BRTs are generally not that much cheaper to build than light rail or metro despite offering lower capacity and much much higher labour costs.
BRT is good as an enhancement for existing, well-used bus services or as a transit improvement for smaller cities but definitely not as a discount transit solution for all of our transit problems.
That is so far from reality it's insane. The cost to build LRT in the US averages between $500M and $1B per mile. You may sincerely believe in reaction that's not possible and is pure hyperbole, but it is literal fact. One look across the main big cities and the cost they've paid and you'll be confirming this as fact. BRT? Try averages between $2.5M to $60M per mile, depending on what kind of ROW you're building. If it's just paint and nothing else (not counting priority signals, as I'd see that as a separate part of the system not part of the ROW/lanes), it's always really cheap to do.
@@TheCriminalViolin Making blanket price comparisons between BRT and LRT without considering the various forms of both modes is misguided.
BRT and LRT are incredibly vague terms.
For example, BRT can refer to anything from "nice bus shelters with intermittent bus lanes" to "completely dedicated right of way with zero intersections, no other traffic and massive stops with pedestrian bridges". Both of these are "BRT" yet they provide very different levels of service and come at very different pricetags.
LRT can refer to "trams running in the middle of a street," "subway but for trams" or anything in between. Once again, the level of service provided and cost are all different.
$500 million to $1 billion per mile refers to LRT projects which are basically subways but with trams instead of metro trains. The service provided by these is simply not comparable to an average median BRT and as such this price comparison is completely meaningless. A more reasonable price for surface light rail that is more comparable to the service provided by a typical median BRT is around 100 to 200 million per mile. (extensions to the Minneapolis LRT system were around 120-130 million per mile) This is still more than a BRT but you get higher capacity and lower staffing costs. The US already pays inflated costs for rail systems compared to the rest of the world.
Also if you read my original comment I said "Bus Highway type BRTs." These are in no ways comparable to your average American BRT.
@@williamhuang8309 See my comment on this video if you want to see what TRUE BRT is, and what LRT in the US usually refers to, which is far from real LRT.
@@TheCriminalViolin Some of your points are valid but some of them miss the point or exclude important information.
1, 2 and 3 (BRT is high capacity and BRT is cheaper): BRT can operate at very high capacity similar to light rail, but this ignores how ridiculously expensive it gets when you try to push BRT beyond what it was intended for. An articulated bus generally has a capacity of 100 people while a short LRV has a capacity of 210 people and a long LRV has a capacity of over 500 people. Many LRT systems in the US will also couple two or more LRVs together for double or triple the capacity. This means that BRT requires 3-5x the number of drivers and 3-5x the number of vehicles as LRT to meet the same capacity. On lower demand routes this isn't an issue but for higher demand routes it makes sense to use larger vehicles (i.e. LRT). It's also very difficult to operate a route at extremely high frequency without complete grade separation since intersections and the like can cause bunching and other issues. So BRT can't be a replacement for a very busy LRT system. There's a reason why Bogota (a city famous for its extensive and popular BRT system) is building a metro system parallel to one of its BRT routes. When you start operating your BRT system at maximum capacity with buses coming every minute, the cost of drivers really starts to add up, especially since drivers make up to 75% of a BRT system's operating costs! And having a massive conga line of buses isn't great for a city Centre. For example Adelaide's O-Bahn busway has buses every minute but during rush hour, the streets in the CBD become completely swamped with buses making it difficult to navigate, and in Auckland, the CBD has far too many buses running into it which results in slow and unreliable travel times even with bus lanes, which is why the council was looking to build LRT to reduce the number of buses.
4 (BRT is more flexible): Yes, BRT can be easily rerouted and changed. This is a legitimate benefit to BRT when it comes to service disruptions. But in the long term, this benefit is diminished as a BRT that can be easily rerouted lacks permanence. A phenomenon that has been happening across the US is BRT Creep, whereby due to the flexibility that BRT offers, the service provided by a BRT has been reduced and whittled down over time until the BRT is barely a BRT at all. Of course, in a perfect world, BRT creep wouldn't happen but we don't live in a perfect world. Land use decisions are based around transportation, but because BRT lacks permanence in that it can easily be reduced over time, less TOD will happen which reduces the effectiveness of the transit. It's important to think of transit not only as a transportation tool, but also a tool for development. Transit planning and land use planning go hand-in-hand, a transit plan with a bad land use plan is a wasted opportunity.
5 (real BRT cannot be affected by traffic because of dedicated ROW and traffic enforcement): Dedicated rights of way certainly help to reduce the effects of traffic but the only way to achieve complete immunity from traffic is complete grade separation. This applies to all modes of transport. Intersections can become clogged or there may be a lot of pedestrians crossing which slows transit down. Simply fining people tens of thousands of dollars (aka their entire annual salary) is simply unrealistic and would do more socioeconomic harm than good.
6 (BRT can cross lines): This is not something which is exclusive to BRT but rather something influenced by transport network planning. Plenty of tram lines across the world cross lines (look at the tram diamonds down Swanston, Elizabeth, Collins and Bourke streets for example) and plenty of LRT systems across the US have routes that split into branches or recombine at-grade. Flyovers and underpasses are mostly useful when operating at extremely high frequency but in other cases it's okay to have grade crossings.
What you then proceed to describe just seems to be a normal, well-run bus service (minus the traffic enforcement bit). A well run bus service should have frequent buses, isolation from traffic, and nicer amenities for passengers. If that is your example of a BRT, you can't compare it to LRT because they serve completely different purposes! Your example of a BRT is an improved bus service with nice stops and dedicated lanes while LRTs provide a higher order transit service meant for higher demand connector routes.
When it comes to planning transit, there is no such thing as a silver bullet transit solution. Different corridors have different requirements, different ridership, etc. BRT can be better than rail in some circumstances, but in other circumstances, LRT or metro can be better than BRT. Transit corridors should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and the best mode should be chosen based on the needs of the route, not trends or whatever is the cheapest option. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve with your transit system. Many of the routes that US cities have built LRT on aren't suitable for LRT and should instead be scoped up to light metro or suburban rail, or scoped down to BRT, but just because the implementation of a technology is bad doesn't mean that the underlying technology is bad. LRT and trams are best used for short to medium distance, high demand routes such as inner city connectors (the Melbourne trams) or orbital lines (Paris tramways). BRT was originally intended to be a higher-order transit system for smaller cities providing faster service, much better frequency and a slight capacity improvement over a normal bus, but pretending that it is the perfect solution for all transit problems is simply unrealistic and fantastical. At the end of the day, all transit solutions have their uses and no one transit solution is universally better than any other (unless you're talking about gadgetbahns like monorail, pods, hyperloop).
@@williamhuang8309 That last portion mostly agrees with me and my stances. I am entirely Anti-light rail unless it is a complimentary service to other transit modes, aka, what you ironically just described. Serving the original purpose of looping or going through the high density urban cores of large cities, with short lines. But that's just not how the US ever does it. They almost always look at say TriMet's MAX Blue line, and implement a mimic of that line in their cities. That's not LRT just because they say it is and they use LRVs. That's a metro or subway line, or even a IC heavy rail service (commuter/regional). That's a huge problem and not acceptable ever.
And again, there is no defense of spending a billion per mile, not even $500M per mile, for something like LRT, given that you're often paying equivalent price and sometimes slightly cheaper for full scale HSR lines that go for 60-300 miles. No matter what anyone says, that's a unalterable fact.
Another great video. Two things you missed. A drawback is even if you’re running articulated buses, there’s only so much capacity on those vehicles, so light rail will have less labor costs as one operator can move more people. The one benefit is, for burgeoning systems, if implemented correctly, it can be upgraded to light rail if demand warrants.
I think brt systems are generally overlooked by urbanists, brts are awesome and if done right they can be comedically good. A good example is istanbul metrobus, its awesome. Line is around 45 miles in lenght and uses buses in 4 different size smallest being 60 feets long THE SMALLEST! And the longest ones system uses are 82 feets long bi articulated buses. There is also plans to use 130 feets long buses from crrc's art series on the line. Other than buses frequency on metrobus is excellent, in the rush hours buses runs on every 15 SECONDS and this means your buses must have great performance and istanbul really take that seriously, in fact istanbul municipality take role in development of newer buses on the system. And of course system has great ridership with around 800k riders DAILY on average and over a million riders on some days A MILLION dont forget that most used metro line in istanbul, m2 line, usually has around 650k daily riders which is crazy in fact metrobus is the second most used transportation way in the istanbul after regular buses. Thats why i think brts are awesome.
This was super informative and inspirational. I just moved to Norfolk VA and the city itself does have a light rail line but Chesapeake to the south of Norfolk is entertaining BRT and I'm so disappointed that it's even a thought. Initially to the best of my knowledge, they wanted to connect to Norfolk's light rail. Nothing changed about that publicly but this week a post was made on Instagram saying that they were studying Richmond's BRT to see if it's a "good fit" for Chesapeake and I'm like "WHUT!? what about the train!?
BRTs are good for suburbs that are in the process of increasing density
BRT is great for those corridors that have ridership that standard buses are finding difficult to cope with but not quite busy enough for rail. It's also good to build ridership along corridors that could make great rail corridors down the road. BRT allows a city's populace to get a taste of rapid transit and can be the great tool in building transit ridership. But, as you said, most cities just end up building a regular "limited" bus route, which negates all the benefits of BRT, namely the "rapid" part. "Rapid" doesn't mean "faster", it means "rapid". Without the "rapid" part, which includes not only the speed, but also the fast boarding and alighting, you end up with a regular "limited" bus route which won't build high ridership, it won't increase transit ridership, because to those who have a choice, it just looks like the buses they already avoid and ends up not doing much to increase access or offering meaningful alternatives to driving.
What describe seems to be happening on the Orange BRT in Los Angeles with LA Metro.
@@mrxman581 Which is actually being converted to light rail.
The brt opened in Winnipeg as the blue bus and has been really good, especially the frequency during rush hour which is around every 3minutes. So I would say if implemented correctly it’s a good way of rapid transit
Awesome video and glad the random footage I got while in Albuquerque made it into your video. I will have to get more footage of my adventures for future videos. And if you ever make a Rio Grande Plan video I can get whatever footage you need!
Charleston, SC is building a Bus Rapid Transit line which I at first thought was silly, but after reading through their environmental survey I understand it. A private company owns the rail ROW and didn't want to share with light or heavy rail.
I do feel like LCRT is a great solution for the city but I feel like a light rail system, no matter the cost, would be a huge game-changer for the city in the long run.
LCRT is still a great opportunity for the city and I hope that it expands to its full extent as soon as possible.
@@autumo_ it's a quality start! I've started planning out what I would want from a light rail to connect downtown, North charl, west ash and Mt. P. CHS is wealthy enough to afford this. The traffic situation is awful and a light rail would be great for tourists trying to see things like patriots point
@@ezekielcarsella exactly!!
Why not a tram with pedestrian only streets?
@@Cyrus992 I assume the mainteance costs are higher.
My problem with BRT is using it as a cheap alternative to actually building true rapid transit, for example with rails and/or on a segregated right of way - unless you REALLY are strapped for cash or something, BRT as a replacement for trams or god-forbid a heavy rail metro system just isn't sustainable - Bogota and Jakarta are proof of that, they will need a proper metro system.
BRT should always be 'buses AS rapid transit', a standard and program for improvements to bus services, applicable everywhere. There's no point building a bespoke bus guideway on one section, when a red painted road will do fine. Or using special vehicles, special fare payments or limiting the kinds of service that use a particularly upgraded section of bus infrastructure. Most of the time so called 'Gold Standard' BRT isn't even using trolleybuses. It should just be BUSES.
Speaking of the GRTC Pulse, I actually got to ride it when I was still living in Henrico County, VA. My only wish is that they should really extend the Pulse line to the airport, And maybe have one on West Broad Street.
All great points! Calgary's initial BRTs weren't much except a few queue jump lanes that give the bus a head start at a traffic light. It's since morphed into two new BRT lines that have dedicated right of way through much of the routes (MAX Purple and MAX Yellow). It doesn't have full signal priority, but it does have the sensors (as do most heavily trafficked bus routes) that will extend a green and overall be aware that a bus is waiting, and shorten its wait. Only part of Calgary I've experienced that buses have to wait at a light for 2+ minutes is at the intersection of Crowchild Trail and Kensington Road NW. It's a terrible highway with a traffic light that divides the community.
Even though there are dedicated lanes, the bus service may not be significantly faster than before. It still runs on surface after all. Some BRT lines went back to local bus service only such as Las Vegas MAX on N. Las Vegas Blvd.
The Cleveland HealthLine example is often mentioned in many videos, I have been on it, but I don't find it amazing. Stops are frequent just like local bus. Everyone still has to pay or swipe a pass at the farebox. What's annoying is that island platforms will require riders to board at the middle (front) door and then walk up front to pay. If I were to ride HealthLine end to end, Red line subway is still better and faster.
In some cases the BRT route just replaced the local and limited stop bus routes altogether. For example, AC Transit Tempo on International Blvd, it may be faster than the 1 bus, but slower than the 1R. There are some BRT amenities, but stops are frequent. Worse part of all, it runs parallel with the existing BART line, no one would spend an hour to ride the BRT from Downtown Oakland to San Leandro while BART is available. If insisit on taking the bus, even bus 40 on Foothill (few blocks away, just a local bus) seems faster than the rapid bus on International.
sounds like BRT creep. Partially implemented but called BRT despite not being it.
Full BRT would have stops every 1/4 or 1/2 mile, pre-paid all-door boarding...
MY COUNTRY GUATEMALA APPEARED THERE (TRANSMETRO), sadly, this project along with transmilenio (in bogota) has doomed our cities to not have a proper public transportation system.
Nice to see San Diego in one of these transit videos 😁
I ride the UVX BRT route in Provo pretty frequently. Overall I think it is pretty good and convenient
Can you do a video on the LA Metro Orange BRT. Looks like there are plans to spend several hundred million to upgrade it. Construction starts this year. It seems like a unique project from the little data I've been able to find. Once the upgrades are complete, it seems it will be the most light rail like BRT in the country. Thanks.
The upgrade will be the full conversion to RAIL.
Love the San Francisco footage. But did you know that San Francisco recently built a BRT route, on Van Ness Avenue? Now, it ended up costing a lot more than a BRT should for one of the same reasons the Union Square/Chinatown Muni Metro line did - because they had to replace the >100-year-old sewers at the same time.
Unfortunately, I hardly ever take Van Ness Avenue - there's just nowhere that way I need to go on the regular. The last time I did, for a series of weekly appointments at a physical therapy clinic up that way, was while it was still under construction. I got to eagerly watch its progress over that time while being stuck riding a bus in even more constrained car traffic while that was happening.
But I have had a couple of opportunities to ride it, and it's _great_ - a *huge* improvement over how things were, and a clear demonstration of the inherent superiority of the bus vs the car for moving large numbers of people through a traffic corridor, now that one can compare them side-by-side. One lane of bus moves _so_ many more people _so_ much faster than two lanes of cars.
And I've heard a lot of criticism that BRT isn't the way to go and it should be light rail instead. But for that to make sense to do on Van Ness, it would have to replace all of the bus routes that currently roll there, which means building new light rial _all over._ Which I'd love, of course - but seeing how hard it was to build just _one_ short (too-short) new Muni Metro line, I really don't see that happening. I'm afraid that, for the next decade or two anyway, BRT is the tool for the job on Van Ness. Though there are improvements to be made.
Isn't San Francisco planning a BRT line on Geary avenue?!
@@CraigFThompson I've heard tell of it from time to time, haven't kept up with it. I think a tram line, like the N-Judah, would be better - there's certainly enough demand. And unlike Van Ness, which is a central spine for several bus lines that go all over the place, the 38 Geary is all there is, afaik (again, I don't head out that way, like, ever, so I may be missing something)
BRT is good for middle cities in particular,
however too much cities build BRT instead of tram/light rail to save money while it would be more adapted. For instance in France we are building a lot of BRT whereas it does not always respond to the needs for instance the TVM in Paris suburb.
Yeah especially in the context of the US and Canada, planning BRT is like wanting to built rapid transit but immediately giving up.
Really awesome vid as always and I enjoyed the cat animations. One bit of feedback is i think there were just a few too many instances of super quick text pop ups that I think distracted from the video a bit
BRT is what every city wants to say it has when most end up far more like a rapid bus. less stops, some lanes and TSP and nicer stops
*Shows Indianapolis*: "A smaller city that can't afford the initial cost of rail"
Oh the burn!
I live in DC so the two main BRTs in the DC-area (Flash BRT by RideOn and Metroway by WMATA) are uh...interesting lol.
Metroway sadly lost a lot of its utility when the Potomac Yard Metro station opened, since it's main goal was to connect local areas of southern Arlington and northern Alexandria with fast growing density. The biggest of those developments was Potomac Yard which...now has a Metro station like I said. On Richmond Highway/US-1, it has center-running bus lanes which is pretty cool and the stations (besides the last stops at Pentagon City/Braddock Road Metro stations) are definitively nicer than most Metrobus stops. Unfortunately, there's a lot of mixed traffic segments so even though it's not on the BRT Standard, i'd struggle to call it anything other than Basic.
Flash BRT is more interesting and far more useful since it extends northeast from the Silver Spring Metro station up into upper Montgomery County via US-29 and has two lines. The lack of dedicated lanes for most of the route on both lines significantly hurts it sadly, as does the questionable signal priority, but it's still a surprisingly fast bus for what it is, and gets decent ridership to the point where RideOn is adding more Flash BRT lines which is neat. I would still call this Basic BRT though lol.
In conclusion, DC BRT is not great, though our local busses are improving at a fairly rapid rate thanks to the ever-increasing amount of bus lanes in the city. There's a reason that DC is known for Metrobus/Metrorail and not the BRT lines is all I'll say lol.
I agree that BRT can be great but has its place. While large cities and metros with a population of 5 million+ shouldn’t even consider substituting high capacity metro lines with BRT (see Bogota), smaller cities and medium sized American cities can use it to quickly improve their transit network and cut down on travel times significantly.
If they're build correctly
@@mrxman581 that too
Would like to add that level boarding is actually a thing with buses installed with optical guidance systems which use lane markings (typically two tightly spaced dashed lines in the middle of the lane) to align the bus with the platform but sadly it's not a very common technology in NA, imo efforts should be spent on improving the existing bus network via measures like signal priority, bus lanes, increasing stop spacing to ~300m, increased frequency, more bus shelters and better route planning and they should serve as the arteries to a robust rail based backbone
Yeah self driving tech can line up perfect
Level boarding exists on several systems that don't have any form of guidance.
Denver is STILL in the engineering phase of its FIRST BRT down Colfax, some 7 years after starting this current iteration. They’re going all out to engineer the perfect premium final product without knowing anything about how well it’ll work & how people will respond to it. This is my biggest issue: when you’re doing something for the first time, iteration & phasing upgrades typically creates a better end result (BRT creep UP!)-politics aside of course. The following lines can be created with more features based on experience from previous lines.
Some lines don’t need
Colfax BRT, or a light rail through Colfax are sorely needed, the 15 and 15L don't provide the kind of service Denver needs running east/west. Would love to also see BRT on Colorado Blvd but who knows how long that'll take
@@emmaa138 City of Denver is designing and constructing the Colfax BRT (part of why it’s so expensive and long in coming), while CDOT is starting on both Colorado and Federal Blvd BRT. It’d be great if they would take an iterative approach and improve service in steps instead of waiting for a big pot of money, but that’s not the DNA of highway agencies.
Atlanta seems to be going all in on BRT for it's new lines, and is already seeing creep. Instead of all in its own ROW, now they are saying 85%. They did talk about signal priority, now, not so much. That is the huge problem with BRT. Politicians expect it to cost less and when it goes over their preconceived budget, they start slowly nibbling away at it until it's just a glorified bus that doesn't get you anywhere any faster. LRRT is a commitment. BRT done this way isn't
My city, San Antonio, has plans to build 2 lines so far. At this point, rail seems DOA here so I’ll take what I can get.
Is Route 100 Fredericksburg already a BRT line?
@@jamiecinder9412 eh. I mean it doesn’t have a dedicated lane. They called it rapid but I don’t think it is.
@@Darruus I know that Route 100 at least has signal priority, though.
@@jamiecinder9412 true. I think the other issue is frequency. I took the bus from the doseum area to USAA once and it took an hour and a half. Most of it was just waiting between busses.
@@Darruus I actually used to live up the street from USAA. All of the bus routes that pass by the main entrance aren't frequent at all. And I can imagine it'd be difficult to get there from the vicinity of the Witte Museum.
My city has at least one BRT that's worthy of Silver ranking. It lacks the off board payment, but it has dedicated law ways, signal priority and digital information boards on the nice platforms telling us when the next bus is, plus other non BRT bus routes that run along the same road benefit from the same upgrades
I live in Miami and we have a 20 mile long bus way which is being updated to be BRT i wonder if it will be useful
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Denver Moves Transit plan. The regional transit authority, RTD, built out an impressive amount of rail service. The only problem is that so little of it serves any dense urban neighborhoods. Denver is planning to build out a strong BRT network to fill in the gaps of the rail lines and better serve its urban core. It seems like a good solution to a very suburban minded regional transportation network.
all mass transit should feed rail (as u stated) in most cases
Since many bus routes don’t need BRT, but could benefit from some of these, a great video would be to review & rank each of them as they impact reliability, timeliness, safety, comfort, etc. helping viewers identify where in their systems these features could be added as bolt ones would be useful.
Also include fare free zones or routes.
So excited to see my local BRT featured in your video (GRTC: Pulse) but bummed that you neglected to mention that it qualified as Bronze. For a while there, it seemed to have fallen off quite frankly but recently, they've made service improvements so all is good.
you should check out the OCstreetcar opening in 2024 in Orange County, California:) Also the transit in OC sucks! The bus frequency is every 30 to 40 minutes! unbelievable and what’s shocking is that Los Angeles is literally the neighboring County of Orange 😭
Orange County is automobiliated to the point of stupidity; they were granted almost a billion dollars in transportation funding, and they wasted most of it on widening Hitler's imported autobahn (the freeways in the county)!
If that money were instead spent on rail, there'd be a light rail connection from the Crenshaw line straight to Disneyland with a single-seat ride!
I think BRT is great. I also think the "fake" BRT's, or enhanced services are great too. Sometimes it's not always necessary to get all of the BRT stuff. I would say where I seem to be disappointed with these systems are some of the headways.
San Diego has major BRT creep with their Rapid bus lines, but they also don't really call them BRT either. Partial bus/bike lanes on the 215 line that just runs down a stroad are an example
W video
connecticut mentioned
the BRT in Provo Utah has changed Provo, it would actually make me not want to drive and take the front runner and use the BRT.
BRT is a tool like any other transit mode! Sometimes it makes sense for BRT, especially in cities where funding is limited and dedicated BRT lanes and service increases could make a significant different for the average rider. Other times BRT is somewhat of a cheap cop out for when Light Rail should really have been built, with much more permanent infrastructure that isn't so easy to strip away with defunding (BRT creep)
Albuquerque Rapid Transit has been great, and definitely has encouraged me to use transit much more than in the past. The level boarding critique is true, tho. For every ART driver that pulls the bus up to the platform perfectly, there are two that seem scared to even try.
If you have to build a new road for a BRT, then it's better to build a railway instead. If you are using existing roads, consider if it's possible to build a railway on some of the lanes.
If a BRT has to be built, it could use trolleybusses to be more eco-friendly.
My mindset: build it small, then scale up as the demand increases
Start with BRT. Any municipality can do that. Upgrade to Light Rail once the BRT system hits capacity. Then upgrade the Light Rail to a metro system once the light rail hits capacity.
Pay for what you need, that way if it doesn't work out, you don't have as massive of a budget failure.
Howcome in areas where we need not a buss (DEATH BY HOT OR COLD) We only get a buss on a 3 hour schedual cause it's all alone on a route to windy and long to think about
Microsoft Surface mentioned
Laughing at the Microsoft Surface in the "Surfaces" montage.
for what i can think, one major problem on brt is in the actual city, cities are too big and dont have the mix use nescessarie to be able to create a robust and frequent brt while being afordable for the citie, i know there are places that did but most cant
Bro you gave more negatives than positives
It should be the best possible quality, such as the BRT in Latin America. The most expensive BRT is still more affordable than rail, so we should sacrifice absolutely nothing when we build BRT.
I think we should have nothing but BRT-buses and light rail in cities. Current structures - at least in Denmark - doesn't work, and delays are just happening too damn often for no other good reason than them not being prioritized over normal traffic.
NO HEAVY OR COMMUTER RAIL?!
@@CraigFThompson Well we do have trains of course so we can get from city to city (if that was what you meant) - but the transportation I meant was in the given city, locally.
@@Xipingu Heavy rail is grade separated SUBWAY service.
In practice it seems that brt is often used as a compromisable compromise. Instead of light rail we get brt to save money. Except instead of brt that would be comparable to rail it's dumbed down to save more money... And the whole points gone. I'm sure in some places it makes alot of sense, when done right that is. But doing something like attaching brt to the end of a light rail line instead of extending it as you should is incorrect use of brt.
I support PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) even more
In which case, we might as well wait for the development of the Star Trek transporter!!
Millie Manors
Funk Forge
Norwood Walk
Well we should look at Bangladesh BRT for case study lol 😂
5:05 Calgary BRT in a nutshell .-.
BRT is awesome 🎉we need more of it.
So far we have none. Literally no US BRT line qualifies as real BRT by the international standard.
@@TohaBgood2 What are the international standards?
@@TohaBgood2 WHAT'D you call the Orange line in Los Angeles?!
@@Jam-to9gv There's a literal international BRT standard and an industry non-profit that sets those standards.
@@CraigFThompson Almost BRT, but bot quite. Still missing too many of the elements. It's still just a bus on a dedicated right of way.
Shits a scam
Our city is broke. They couldn't plow last winter. All it does is make congestion a lot worse. All speed limits now reduced, lanes are bus only. Bus stops on both sides of a lane. So yes 4 busses can all stop at the same time completely stopping all traffic. And now added tons of new stop lights.
Thompson Matthew Young Dorothy Anderson Charles
Just stick with a standard bus, put the effort in the routes and shelters. Most BRT steal street space that is already at the max during the AM/PM rush. Most older cites don’t have the space.
That's all the more reason to use BRT: frequent buses move many more people than car lanes do. One lane is 900 cars per hour on city streets. An articulated bus every 2 minutes would be 120*30 = 3600 people. Of course, light rail could do even better: say every 4 minutes, 600 people * 15 = 9000 people/hour.
LA Metro needs to build better and more true BRT lines with dedicated ROWs. They need to replicate around the County what they did so successfully with the Orange BRT line. So they compliment access to the rest of the subway and light rail lines on LA Metro. It would help with the first/last mile issues too.
LA needs more RAIL before it should even think about adding more buses....
Yes BRT is the most underrated form of effective public transportation. The speed and low capital cost is incredible. Almost every case for BRT falls apart unless if you live in very high dense areas. As far as energy usage per passenger, I’d like to see real data for this because LRT may not have rolling resistance, but energy lost in transmission wires can’t be overlooked and buses are becoming more energy efficient. The BRT in bogota has a capacity of nearly 50,000 passengers per hour per direction. The capacity and productivity of BRT when done right is astounding and dedicated bus right of ways should be immediately integrated into almost all road networks and new developments should have a minimum number of bus only lanes. When you look deeply into the majority of arguments for rail over BRT is they just don’t think buses are sexy, and that’s insane. There are rail lines that have been built where they could have had 5 times the lane miles in BRT but people decided on rail for no logical justification.
Rail advantages:
Much lower labor cost per passenger. Note BRT really takes off in low-wage countries.
Nicer rides. Train on rail simply has less sway; a minor detail for me, but a big one for motion-sicknes prone people.
Lower longer term costs: as mentioned, trains last much longer than buses.
One lane wasted for a bus is ridiculous
However, there'd be TWO!
I found this to as usual for transit and urbanist TH-cam be sorely lacking in legitimate examples of the pros of BRT, and almost functioning as a pseudo-light rail promo video. As a huge transit nut, and deeply entrenched in urbanism, this is a problem that is like a fast acting cancer in the community. Everyone's got this weird adoration and whoring out for LRT attitude and mentality. I think the most incredibly ironic part of it is just how much most of these video often coo & rave about how "state of the art" and "great" TriMet's MAX system is, when in reality, it's terrible and proves constantly why LRT is a horrible idea that deserves ZERO support, and BRT should be the go-to always. Allow me to give the list of pros BRT has that crush LRT.
1. BRT does not require or have a limit on how many buses can be ran, and how close together they can run either (they can form a conga line no problem unlike LRT)
2. BRT in reality can match and even top LRT in capacity per mile because of the prior
3. BRT is infinitely cheaper both in the short term and long term (yes it IS FAR cheaper than LRT overall through the lifetime of the systems)
4. Buses can detour and reroute if need be, whereas trains CANNOT. If something happens on the LRT system, it will strand and potentially cripple the line or system entirely until whatever it is is fixed or cleared. Buses do NOT have this issue at all.
5. TRUE BRT is also impervious to traffic congestion, as not only does it have it's own ROW or lanes the entire length of the lines, and priority signals, but a correctly and strictly enforced system with harsh penalties for violators would ensure even the most arrogant and rich of offenders stop interfering with the line (revocation of license or permanent ban on operating a motor vehicle of any kind on the roads alongside egregiously high fines that increase by 2x each violation until the third, where it would skyrocket in the territory of $50k+ fine alongside that permanent ban)
6. There is plenty of ability to have crossover with other BRT lines, rail lines, and other transit modes whereas with rail, you can't cross lines without either having a logistic nightmare, or, a really expensive set of stations with a flyover or under section for the crossings.
7. Plenty of other benefits including some you yourself noted in this video.
When done correctly a true BRT system cannot be beaten at all by any other mode of transit, including any other types of bus lines. It just cannot be touched or competed with. Articulated buses are also key. You have to use high capacity buses, artics are always correct here because double deckers take noticeably longer to board and disembark.
Here's the correct way to make a true BRT line:
- Priority signals at ALL intersections.
- Bus lanes the entire length of each line.
- All buses have the systems on board that automatically capture photos and video clips of violating vehicles in the lane, which automatically generates a report and sends its to the respective police departments for enforcement
- Strict, unalterable laws that offer HARSH penalties without ability to lower or otherwise get out of being charged with no matter what that are aggressively enforced by police (aggressively meaning quickly and sternly.) These penalties realistically would begin at around a $2500 fine for a first offense. $5000 fine and a one year suspension of your driver's license or permit for a second violation, with a third violation going up to $10000 fine, 3 year suspension of license/permit and impoundment of your personal vehicle of which the violation(s) were committed in. The fourth and final violation would be the one made specifically for the richest aholes with the most arrogance as only they'd be dumb and egotistical enough to even consider risking it, let alone do it a fourth time - A fine of at least $100K, permanent revocation of license without ability to be allowed to regain it ever again, and permanent impoundment of all personal vehicles (likely being sold at police auction).
- Buses run AT LEAST every 8 minutes at peak times, preferably every 2 1/2 to 5 minutes at peak, with all other times being at least every 15 minutes, preferably every 10-12 minutes. Adjusting these times _slightly_ in less dense areas/lines is acceptable as this typically would result in lower demand and ridership. The key word is slightly. So instead of every 4 or 5 minutes, every 8 minutes is good at rush hour, with every 15 minutes being fine outside of peak demand times. But lines that connect to and through denser urban environments will need to be as frequent as possible in order to ensure all demand is met with allowance for some extra space on each bus.
-All stops need to have the most basic amenities which are full covered seating, with room to stand as well as for at least two ADA users, at least one trash can, lighting, and a digital live time board/schedule.
- HIGH quality buses and interiors on said buses (use TriMet as exactly how NOT to have your buses made/interiors done)
- Ensure that along and around the lines, pedestrians have the same priority as the buses do at intersections (pedestrians being the same priority as buses is a imperative key to a properly made transit line and system)
- Keep the stops and buses clean and well maintained at all times with no excuses. If needed, hire or select a portion of staff to form a dedicate team specifically caring for these BRT lines and vehicles
All in all, inter-modality is imperative and key to a properly develop and ran metro area and city, not just a properly made and ran transit system. But people need to stop listening to all the "experts" who are consistently bought out and paid the big bucks by the lobbies of light rail (yes, it really does exist) and corporate development firms. Light Rail is NOT the answer, and it is far from this weird almost omnipotent mode of transit so many of the big urbanist and transit channels seem to always talk it up to be. It is more of a detriment than a quality mode of transportation.
Factually speaking, LRT as the US makes it is NOT what LRT was even made for in the first place. True LRT is the old 1920s streetcar. Or the short historic trolley line. Think Portland Streetcar and The San Diego Trolley if you're looking in the US. THAT IS TRUE LRT. Slow, short loops and lines built specifically to *_COMPLIMENT_* BUS and REAL RAIL transit. NOT to function as it's own mode of transit. And even then they're still corrupted from the real purpose of LRT because they're not in the most high density urban core of massive cities. Toronto, NYC, London, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, insert-chinese-city-of-choice-here, etc. That kind of massive high density core city is exactly what LRT is made for to again, compliment real rail and bus in short loops around and through that main central core.
Yet here in the US, LRT is always made to mimic TriMet's MAX system, and specifically the Blue Line, which spans almost the entire length of the metro area from Hillsboro to Gresham. That is what subways and metros are for. You know, medium and heavy rail. NOT Light Rail. For proper rail and rail stock. Even regional rail and a form of IC or ICE is better fit for such use and length than LRT. That's something that's always infuriated me as a transit whore and planning nut. And the hordes of people who consistently jump in to actively defend it with a fervor of sorts.
Moreover, the cost of LRT? BILLIONS. The Orange line MAX cost us $7.9B for 7.8 Miles - 80% of which already had recently laid trackway along it. That's ONE BILLION DOLLARS PER MILE. Yeah, sorry, there's not a goddamn soul who will ever be capable of having anything close to a legit defense for such BS. And for anyone who wants to say, "Well that's ONCE for ONE CASE. It's one off, dude!" you're absolutely wrong. The Green line, the line built before the aforementioned one cost $5.6B to construct, which is roughly the same distance. That was built between 2010 and 2012. Each LRT line TriMet forces on us, we foot the entire bill, and it increases on average a solid $2B each time. And now with inflation? HAHAHA, kill me. Just shoot me.
And as for the efficiency or consistency of LRT compared with BRT or even normal bus service? It's a fucking joke. MAX consistently has issues DAILY. Even throwing out the consistent cancellations due to the still persisting operator shortage, TriMet has always had to keep around a contingent of around 50-100 old retired buses in order to have them do MAX's job whenever a MAX line inevitably once again becomes SOL and completely stuck/stranded. Suicides, inattentive peds, cars stuck on tracks, collisions, accidents, medical emergencies, mechanical failures of the trains, failures in the pantographs, failure of the crossing gates, failures of the signals (this one is so stupidly persistent it's insane), bridge lift issues or failures, it's too hot to run, it's too cold to run, there's a little bit of weather and they can't run the line, etc, etc, etc. And again, rail is completely screwed anytime anything happens. It becomes immediately crippled and cannot function again until whatever the problem is is remedied. So guess what mode of transit has to come out and do the job of your precious light rail? Those dirty, old, "inefficient" buses. Whoops.
Seriously, it's not remotely difficult to see how infinitely superior in every single way buses are to light rail, let alone rail transit in general when it comes to serving metro areas and cities themselves. Rail realistically should not even be a consideration unless it is a high population metro area, and it is entirely grade separated and medium or heavy rail.
Your entire argument is so flawed 😂
Like the logic is just completely lacking.
1st of all you're comparing utopian, unrealistic, "true" BRT to bad examples of realistic LRT systems. Like no NA city is going to get a "true" BRT system, just like how none of them have a perfect LRT system because thats just how transit design and funding works in NA.
2nd - point 5 is just absolute nonsense. LRT/Trams can interact with other modes much easier than BRT can. Expecially if you want your BRT to have those super high frequencies you talk about in point 1. There are systems around the world were LRTs run on mainline rail tracks or where trains run on tram/LRT tracks, look up tram-trains (Karlsruhe model) and train-trams (Zwickau Model). Or where buses run on LRT tracks. Plus so many cities have systems where different LRT lines share track for a portion of their route.
3rd - point is 5 unrealistic. The vast majority of BRT systems involve running either in regular traffic or have a ton of places where cars cross the BRT lanes. Meaning that they are still as subjectable to car traffic as any LRT with the same design.
Plus if you then decide to put the BRT on its own road or guideway, you eliminate any benefits from buses being able to reroute and up the costs to a point where a tram/LRT would probably be cheaper
4th - point 4 is the same regardless if its a BRT or LRT that has been shut down. The experience taking a rail replacement bus is going to be basically the same as taking a rerouted BRT.
@@Gfynbcyiokbg8710 Everything you just said lacks logic.
And as for the first thing you said, that would mean you're of the mind we just sit down, stop trying and accept the current status quo, unless it's LRT. Go figure. LRT fans are some of the biggest idiots out there, and they swear they aren't proving it ever time they open their mouths. That's not insult, that's observable facts. Believe whatever you want, but my god you're wrong.
@@TheCriminalViolinpeoples illogical criticisms of BRT is one of the biggest tragedies in making cities better. It can be done so quickly, incredibly cheaply, and have enough capacity for 99% of cases in America but people would rather have light rail because it sounds sexier. They put in around 18 miles of light rail in honolulu and have spent over 10 billion dollars and they have very little housing around the light rail line yet but are planning on doing TOD despite the fact Oahu has experienced no growth in population. They could have flooded the entire island where people live with bus rapid transit in a fraction of the time and enabled the land to be upzoned to townhomes and midrise apartments/condos. People basically make up excuses saying paying drivers would be so expensive but that completely discounts the idea that buses would be way fuller/faster leading to such higher levels of productivity that it offsets that point. If they would have put in BRT on every highway and high traffic corridor, it would have completely transformed peoples lives by now. But instead, people have waited over a decade and they’re spending almost half a billion more dollars to relocate the utilities on one single road to get ready for the rail to finally begin construction in the city where people live. I hope it works out but I feel like people are doing what’s fancy rather than what’s practical.
@@usernameryan5982 Yep, you're spot on man. It's one of if not my biggest peeve when it comes to "urbanism".
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE HAVE ANOTHER DISSERTATION FROM THE VAULTS OF THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY!