Bus rapid transit system a quick fix for cities

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

Bus rapid transit systems like the one Honolulu is planning to launch in 2005 are popping up in more than 150 communities across the country, fueled by billions of dollars in federal subsidies.

Still, just like in Honolulu, there are skeptics.

The success of BRTs across the country is likely to hinge on overcoming a popular public perception that bus service is somehow second class, opponents say. The more expensive light rail systems, with their sleek, sexy or sometimes nostalgic appeal, are more likely to pay off in the long run by bringing more new riders into public transportation, they say.

Honolulu's BRT project, which will receive its first airing before the City Council's new Transportation Committee at an informational hearing tomorrow, is ambitious, even by national standards. The project, expected to cost nearly $1 billion and take 10 years to fully implement, includes new technology designed to make transportation most efficient, according to federal officials and scientists involved in BRT research.

"The whole idea behind BRT is to keep buses moving. When it's done right, it's a wonderful concept," said Michael Baltes, a senior researcher at the National BRT Institute at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Much of the BRT push is generated by new technologies which make the buses faster, more efficient and more attractive to riders.

"It's fascinating to see how modern the buses are today," said Claire Tamamoto, an 'Aiea sales representative who has visited BRT sites in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Curitiba, Brazil as a member of the Honolulu Transportation Commission.

Around the country communities are buying into the BRT concept, often at the urging of the Federal Transit Administration, the primary source of money for mass transit.

"We feel BRT is a very promising mode that should be considered very carefully," said Gail Taylor, an FTA spokeswoman in Washington. "Ultimately, it's a choice that has to be made locally, but it definitely has the advantage of improving ridership and decreasing travel time at a lower cost of implementation."

A recent General Accounting Office report showed that capital costs for BRT systems across the country range from $200,000 to $55 million per mile; by comparison, light rail systems had capital costs ranging from $12.4 million to $118 million per mile, Baltes said.

The grandfather of all BRTs is in Pittsburgh, where the first route was established in 1977 and the network now includes more than 16 miles of exclusive busways throughout the city and suburbs carrying about 52,000 passengers a day. Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, Chicago, and Charlotte, N.C., are among the other cities that have some form of a BRT up and running.

Many of the most successful sites have one cost advantage over Honolulu's proposed BRT: an existing right of way that can be used exclusively by buses with minimum impact on existing traffic. The corridors include old railroad lines and newly constructed bus lanes along widened freeways.

The in-town portion of the Honolulu BRT calls for buses to operate in exclusive medial lanes or curbside contraflow lanes (38 percent of its length), semi-exclusive curb lanes that also allow tour buses and turning cars (29 percent) and in mixed traffic (33 percent). The second phase, which will extend the BRT from town to Kapolei, would use mostly dedicated lanes, including the existing zipper lane on the H-1 Freeway.

"If you don't create an exclusive lane, where's the advantage?," said J. Barry Barker, executive director of Transit Authority of River City in Louisville, Ky., where officials considered a BRT project before opting instead for a more expensive light rail system.

"Frankly, when we talked to groups in the community, we just couldn't generate any excitement for a BRT," he said. "It's hard to overcome the old bus stereotypes. Rail has more of an image that makes it an easier sell."

Los Angeles' 2-year-old Metro Rapid BRT system operating on one lane of the Wilshire-Whittier corridor has lowered commuting time by 25 percent and attracted thousands of new riders. The service is so frequent that there's no need for benches at the bus stop, Tamamoto said.

"Even the drivers still in their cars have figured out that they'll make better time and not have to stop for red lights if they just stay behind the buses," Baltes said. The change has been so popular that transit officials in Los Angeles plan to add up to 24 new BRT lines in the next two years.

In Albany, N.Y., officials are planning at 16-mile BRT line that will use a combination of exclusive lanes and mixed traffic, just like in Honolulu.

"We have areas where it can take 20 minutes to drive just one mile," said Martin Hull, senior planner for the Capitol District Transportation Authority in Albany. "We felt like we couldn't afford to build an exclusive bus lane through the whole route, but anything we could do now would help. We can take other steps down the line."

Although most of the BRT criticism in Honolulu has come from those who want more money spent on highway and driving improvements, elsewhere in the country BRT opponents often rally around the light rail alternative.

Lightrailnow, a nonprofit group that advocates trolleys and light rail alternatives for mass transit, suggests that BRT proponents have consistently underestimated costs and overestimated ridership potential and the BRT's ability to improve travel times.

"In particular, for similar types and levels of service, the capital costs of BRT are quite close to (often even greater than) those of LRT," the group says.

The group also says that light rail's popular public appeal makes it more likely to bring in first-time mass transit users, something that significantly lowers its per-passenger startup costs.

"The federal government is faced with an increasing number of local projects coming at them, so, of course, they opt for the less expensive ones so they can spread more of the money around to different places," Louisville's Barker said.

Even some BRT proponents across the country see light rail as the best solution — but only in the long run. In Las Vegas officials are building a monorail system that will run along the same corridor as the existing BRT.

"BRT systems are being considered because they can be up and running quickly," Baltes said. Others have suggested that BRTs can be seen as a transitional mode, by securing a right of way, developing ridership and then converting to a light rail system at a far cheaper cost.

"Right now I'm in favor of the BRT in Honolulu, but we can change the whole system later as demand requires," said John Dell, a former Navy officer and a member of the city's Transportation Commission. "Getting something done quickly is best so we can evaluate what works and make changes later. We'll never know if it works till we try it."

Such changes are part of the BRT growing process across the country.

"None of this is unique to Hawai'i," Barker said. "Time and again people are going to question the right mode of transportation. You'll always have the highway lobby, too. These sorts of discussions can be good. They're really about asking what does our city look like now and what is it going to look like in the future. How you get there matters."