Joyce Eleanor, who is CEO of Community Transit, had an opinion piece about CT’s Swift bus-rapid-transit (BRT) system in today’s Times. It’s a pretty cool piece in that it talks about how much federal money is being kicked-in, how it looks like it’ll attract about a million riders a year (are those new riders, though?) and the technology to make it actually BRT instead of just BT.
The piece leaves me with a few questions, though I am quibbling. Ms. Eleanor says “Swift is a bus line that mimics a commuter train”. A commuter train? Sounder is our commuter train, and I don’t think that’s what she meant. If it mimicking a commuter train than this can’t be true: “We believe that most people will ride Swift for shorter journeys along Highway 99, possibly creating an incentive for economic development as you might see along a light-rail or streetcar line.” In addition to being bad grammar (who is possibily creating what?) if it’s mimicking commuter rail, it’s not creating a lot of development. I don’t see a ton of new development around Sounder Stations.
I know this is pedantic, but I am annoyed with the “BRT can be anything and everything” crowd.
I’m having a hard time seeing the downside here. If the author of the opinion piece got it wrong, well, we will soon know. If CT BRT can deliver the goods, well, more power to them.
To me the most irritating thing about most BRT propagandists is that they really have no intention of supporting any real BRT, unless, of course, their company will get a contract.
In this case, though, we’ll be getting solid figures and real equipment to ride. People can make up their own minds then.
I like the BRT idea there, and the technology improvements they want to built will make for some much better bus service. If they could connect to Metro’s “transit now” service on 99, or even partner for code-sharing, they could really improve transit there.
this is going to work well for them, i think.
rapid ride is not BRT. it’s a $50M express bus and a new paint job.
no matter – once people start being able to ride light rail in seattle, i suspect not only will we see more of it being approved, but also many of the projects being fast-tracked.
King County voters approved a 0.1-cent increase in our sales tax to fund Rapid Ride. That was in 2006, and RR is scheduled to come online in 2011 — five years after the public vote.
I don’t know when Community Transit began working on their BRT line, but it will be in service in 2009, two years ahead of KCMetro.
It appears like Comm. Transit is doing this much faster than KCMetro. Is this an accurate view, and if so, why?
Ask not what you can do for BRT…
…but what BRT can do for you!
The article says the whole project has a $30 million budget — 60% of what Metro gets every year for Transit Now.
Arrgh.
While it’s true Swift will be less expensive than light rail (or, I guess, they are now trying to copare themselves with commuter rail), this BRT line will also be significantly slower than the light rail line proposed in Prop 1 and its reliability will have to be proven.
BAT lanes and signal priority will help, but lanes are missing on half the corridor and there is no plan to fund them – again, thanks to the defeat of Prop 1.
I also find it interesting that BRT advocates ignore growing congestion on the 99 and I-5 corridors (which will affect Swift speed and reliability in the future). They also ignore rapidly rising operations costs, which consume “new” service hours the second the rubber hits the road.
The average speed of Swift over the 16 miles between Everett Station and Aurora Village is 13.5 mph. The average system speed of Link as proposed in ST2 was 26 mph.
And assume, for a moment, that light rail between Everett and the county line would operate at this speed (it would likely be even faster because of wide station spacing and dedicated ROW) – the same trip would take 37 minutes instead of 51.
Swift will provide a better intercommunity connection within SW Snohomish County than they have now (which is not difficult to achieve) but Swift is not intended or designed to address regional travel markets. So, once again, the comparison with rail is a pointless exercise, aside from scoring political points.
One sure thing: BRT advocates need to start being more honest with their numbers. Overpromising transit performance gave us the monorail debacle. It seems as if BRT zealots are traveling down the very same path. (they certainly hooked the naive Sierra Club – see: http://www.gobrt.org to understand how a group concerned about global warming could embrace diesel buses)
And what’s the point of pitting buses against rail, anyways? Without rail, these bus agencies are looking at unsustainable service 10-20 years down the line, as congestion and high operating costs eat into any gains they make with new programs.
The comparison doesn’t tell us much, but since Community Transit’s director is now referencing commuter rail, let’s line it up with ST’s Sounder:
Swift, 16 miles, 51 minutes (estimated), max speed: 45 mph
Sounder: 35 miles, 60 minutes maximum speed: 80 mph
(add on a 55 minute express bus trip from the Aurora TC to downtown Seattle via 358 or 300 series, and the bus covers the 1 hour Sounder trip in 2 hours)