May 2011

As we survey the New York City transportation landscape, nothing very big is happening. The MTA has its so-called megaprojects churning as the Second Ave. Subway, 7 line extension and East Side Access Project all inch toward completion dates later this decade, but there is nothing in the works that will reshape or revolutionize transit in the area. Instead, we have clogged roads in desperate need of repair, traffic that needs mitigating and a subway system that needs significant investment.

Meanwhile, the Transportation of the Future is on the minds of a few folks lately, and the topics are less than exciting. In a multi-story package last week, The Wall Street Journal delved into Tomorrow’s Transportation and determined that monorails and, uh, buses are the future of transportation. Pardon me if neither of those modalities make me jump for joy. The price tags may be more alluring that deep-bore subway construction; the offerings may be greener than massive road expansion plans; but somewhere along the way, we forgot to think big.

The Journal’s article about buses focuses on tried-and-true BRT with pre-board fare payment, dedicated lanes and the works. It’s not really about the sub-par BRT imitation New York is laying down because our transit policy folks are brow-beaten by a bunch of NIMBYs. It is full of the typical over-the-top love of bus lanes as the article calls BRT a “modern transit system that combines the flexibility of buses with the speed, comfort and reliability of rail.”

The article reads as something out of the Walter Hook Manual for BRT, and a recent release from the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy sounds familiar themes. BRT, says the release, “combines the flexibility of buses with the speed and priority of light rail, but at a fraction of the cost of rail.”

There is no denying that bus rapid transit is the popular modality these days. “BRT projects can be put in place quickly, and integrate well with other transportation modes, from subways to cycling and walking, while fitting today’s often constrained budgets,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, said. “Now more than ever it is important to find creative solutions to provide affordable transportation options that meet the needs of our communities and residents and keep our economy moving forward.”

And yet, BRT can’t approximate rail. For a BRT lane to deliver the capacity a subway can — and particularly in New York — the operator would have to run something on the order of 40 buses an hour. BRT may be cheaper than building out a subway line or light rail, but you get what you pay for. As Yonah Freemark noted, there’s nothing wrong with that.

In dispensing with the Rail vs. BRT fight, Freemark noted that the two modalities should not be pitted against each other. Rather, they should be used in concert to form a better overall transit network experience. He writes:

The real divisions between bus and rail are political: For those who would fight for improved transit systems in their cities, the truth is that rail projects do certainly have more appeal among members of the public. Thus a billion-dollar rail project may be easier to stomach for a taxpaying and voting member of the citizenry than a quarter-billion BRT line. While the former is qualitatively different than what most car drivers are used to, the latter mode is too easily lumped in with the city bus, which car users have already paid to avoid.

Better transit can come in many forms, but in a country in which the vast majority of people have no contact with public transportation this side of Disney World, making the argument for investments in more buses is difficult, to say the least. BRT is just not sexy until you’ve experienced it. Which is why the considerable success of BRT in South America has not convinced many U.S. cities to abandon their ambitions for more rail.

Articles like those in the Journal and the Globe and Mail, despite their positive assessments of the potential for BRT, nonetheless reinforce the sense that BRT is inferior to rail by putting the two in contrast to one another, rather than focusing on the relative benefits of each. By continuously describing BRT as an economical way to get something like light rail, all that comes across is that it’s cheap.

What do we do then in an area in which our politicians aren’t willing to do anything for any form of transportation? City officials haven’t stood up for their modified Select Bus Service — or BRT Lite — plans, and rail expansion is a non-starter because of the price tags. The status quo can’t keep up with demand under or above ground. So let’s just throw everything out and start building monorails instead. If it works in China and Mumbai, it can work here, right?