The Easy Cases

Krugman says:

Infrastructure is another problem. Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it’s hard to justify transit systems unless there’s sufficient population density, yet it’s hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access.

This is all true enough (and what Duncan said) but before we try to run in terms of transit and infrastructure it makes sense to walk. Many Americans live in places where there is no transit infrastructure, and a healthy number of people live in places that just aren't well-suited to creating any such infrastructure. But it's a big country and some people already are living near transit infrastructure.

One piece of very low-hanging fruit is to promote denser development near our existing stations (instead of, e.g., bungalows and vacant lots near the Brookland Metro here in DC) which are often places where developers are clamoring to build and potential residents clamoring to live but incumbent property owners are trying to avoid sharing the wealth. Another opportunity is to improve service quality and frequency at things like our existing commuter rail lines. With gas prices rising, I bet a lot of Virginians are giving VRE a second look but they're probably discovering that it sucks. Making an existing commuter rail line more useful isn't brain surgery and doesn't involve any paradoxes or dilemmas, it just needs to be made a funding priority.

Last, it's always worth reiterating that while a lot of Americans live in genuinely low-density environments, many car-heavy parts of the U.S. are actually pretty dense. New Jersey is, as I've noted before, about as dense as the Netherlands which is one of the least driving-oriented countries. Los Angeles, too, though far from the densest city in the world is actually pretty dense and once featured a lot of transit in the form of streetcars while the well-designed Portland is hardly the second coming of Tokyo. If we start doing better with the relatively easy cases, that would create a more supportive environment for more difficult issues.

Photo of New Jersey Transit station by Flickr user Morrissey used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

You're spot-on regarding the inefficiency of much U.S. public transit. Even in the SF Bay Area, BART shuts down before midnight, leaving few to no options to get across the Bay.

The truth is that most U.S. metropolitan areas simply do not have truly efficient public transit. Where they've really missed the boat is not building light rail systems. It's all car, baby. Yes, there's a bus system, but it can take forever to get around. For my teenage nephew to get to his volunteer gig, it takes 60-90 minutes and at least one bus transfer.

Sadly, it will take a seismic change in mindset to get Americans out of their cars. Moreover, public transit - seen as an urban issue - gets short shrift by most voters. They simply do not see its importance as it does not affect their daily lives. Personally, I believe car co-ops - I'm an iGo member - are a huge step forward.

Posted by Judy | May 19, 2008 2:41 PM

Judy,

The Tube in London shuts down around midnight as well. After that you have to take the bus. It sucks.

Also, the Netherlands isn't that dense outside of the major cities. And in those areas, a lot of people drive. It only seems to have a high density because the cities make up a significant proportion of the area/population. Especially when compared to other countries. I would wager that more people take NJ Transit than rural Dutch using the rail.

Posted by Mo | May 19, 2008 2:49 PM

They simply do not see its importance as it does not affect their daily lives.

True. However, its reasonable to assume that a large number of people are beginning to see the light. Cheap gas is never coming back and there aren't any suitable alternatives in the works. Ethanol is snake oil and the US electric grid is shaky enough without factoring in powering up everybody's cars. There is writing on yon wall, and people are starting to read it. Its harder and harder to get a seat on the bus for me each day, a problem I don't mind having.

Posted by Roboticghost | May 19, 2008 2:49 PM

I would love to use rail transport more often in the LA area. But the train that returns to my city from LA stops running at 9PM. The train that runs to my work operates infrequently to the point that makes taking it nearly impossible.

I've been begging for better scheduling for rail services. But good luck with that; up to 100000 teachers may be laid off because "we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem." (I guess we're trying secure the bottom spot in the country in K-12 educational quality.) This state is broke; raising taxes is off the table. Public transportation is going nowhere.

(I think that California should change its state motto to "Penny wise, pound foolish." They could put it on the state flag.

Posted by MattD | May 19, 2008 2:52 PM

I would love to use rail transport more often in the LA area. But the train that returns to my city from LA stops running at 9PM. The train that runs to my work operates infrequently to the point that makes taking it nearly impossible.

I've been begging for better scheduling for rail services. But good luck with that; up to 100000 teachers may be laid off because "we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem." (I guess we're trying secure the bottom spot in the country in K-12 educational quality.) This state is broke; raising taxes is off the table. Public transportation is going nowhere.

(I think that California should change its state motto to "Penny wise, pound foolish." They could put it on the state flag.

Posted by MattD | May 19, 2008 2:53 PM

I would love to use rail transport more often in the LA area. But the train that returns to my city from LA stops running at 9PM. The train that runs to my work operates infrequently to the point that makes taking it nearly impossible.

I've been begging for better scheduling for rail services. But good luck with that; up to 100000 teachers may be laid off because "we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem." (I guess we're trying secure the bottom spot in the country in K-12 educational quality.) This state is broke; raising taxes is off the table. Public transportation is going nowhere.

(I think that California should change its state motto to "Penny wise, pound foolish." They could put it on the state flag.

Posted by MattD | May 19, 2008 2:55 PM

Tokyo's not that dense, as non-US cities go. It's just that it has reasonable density across the whole of a vast sprawl.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | May 19, 2008 2:58 PM

Even in the relatively densly populated and transit friendly cities of the Northeast, the vast majority of the infrastructure is ancient. With the exception of DC (mmmm...federal money), the subway and the rail systems that do exist are remnants of what was developed, in some cases pre-WWI and in most cases pre-WWII. There just hasn't been any real investment since the shift to automobile and the interstate highways that occured in the 1950s. Sure would be nice to see that trend reversed.

Posted by Roman | May 19, 2008 3:00 PM

As implied by the last comment, if you want to fix public transit in the US you have to fix local government first.

The local government system here looks like the Holy Roman Empire on a bad day, with a crazy quilt of overlaping jurisdictions. The system is funded mostly by property taxes, so there is a strong bias towards more real estate development (eg sprawl) and not doing anything to decrease property values (such as digging up a street to put in a subway line).

Because of the system's complexity, and because many decisions are made by unelected agencies, voters have little effective control. This means with any locally run infrastructure project, most of the money gets siphoned off to the politically connected, usually through exorbinate contracts with private firms and unions representing the workforce.

The Bay Area is a case in point, with three separate rail systems and a host of bus systems, and this is a metro area with better local government, and beter public transit, than the U.S. norm.

Posted by Ed | May 19, 2008 3:02 PM

I should have added that the broken local government system in the US, along with the system of federal real estate subsidies, is the likely the main reason why middle class folks have to move to the outskirts of metropolitan areas if they can afford to raise a family. This doesn't help matters.

Posted by Ed | May 19, 2008 3:07 PM

The Netherlands isn't driving oriented? I had a perfectly easy time driving there...except for the traffic in Rotterdam, which I blame the sat-nav for.

Posted by KathyF | May 19, 2008 3:13 PM

Los Angeles, too, though far from the densest city in the world is actually pretty dense and once featured a lot of transit in the form of streetcars

Damn you, Judge Doom!

Posted by Cain | May 19, 2008 3:16 PM

We might also think the transit in Europe is nice, because our visits involve the dense capital cities and we stay in the center of said cities. Everytime I had to go outside the city center, it was still dense but the mass transit did take quite a bit of time to get there. Between getting to the station, waiting for the train and taking it trips took far longer than if I just had a car and drove there. That and during rush hour it was hot, crowded and I usually had to stand. A car is just a much nicer way to travel.

It's also much denser in Europe, even outside the city centers the rail lines are lined with apartment housing. In the US that housing is usually SFR. Density may be similar overall, but we certainly have more sprawl in the US.

Posted by JordanT | May 19, 2008 3:44 PM

Not to beat two dead horses, but this is why:

(A) bus rapid transit can make sense in many cases (it is flexible and scalable and so can be tailored over time to match shifting demand patterns); and

(B) post-industrial cities in the country's interior may be poised for a comeback (since many of them contain currently underpopulated dense neighborhoods close to the local employment centers, often dating back to the streetcar days).

Posted by DTM | May 19, 2008 3:52 PM

Ed:
Because of the system's complexity, and because many decisions are made by unelected agencies, voters have little effective control.

I don't want to be a cynic/obstructionist, but do you really think you would get a better, more cohesive transit system if voters had more direct control? Direct democracy in a matter where just about everyone is potentially directly affected seems like it would almost surely lead to complete political gridlock.

I should have added that the broken local government system in the US, along with the system of federal real estate subsidies, is the likely the main reason why middle class folks have to move to the outskirts of metropolitan areas if they can afford to raise a family.

I think it's more accurate to say that the real estate subsidies allow middle class folks to move out, rather than forcing them to do so. A lot of people (not everyone) like their single family homes and their yards and their car based lifestyle.

Posted by BP Beckley | May 19, 2008 3:54 PM

Ed:
Because of the system's complexity, and because many decisions are made by unelected agencies, voters have little effective control.

I don't want to be a cynic/obstructionist, but do you really think you would get a better, more cohesive transit system if voters had more direct control? Direct democracy in a matter where just about everyone is potentially directly affected seems like it would almost surely lead to complete political gridlock.

I should have added that the broken local government system in the US, along with the system of federal real estate subsidies, is the likely the main reason why middle class folks have to move to the outskirts of metropolitan areas if they can afford to raise a family.

I think it's more accurate to say that the real estate subsidies allow middle class folks to move out, rather than forcing them to do so. A lot of people (not everyone) like their single family homes and their yards and their car based lifestyle.

Posted by BP Beckley | May 19, 2008 3:57 PM

"I think it's more accurate to say that the real estate subsidies allow middle class folks to move out, rather than forcing them to do so. A lot of people (not everyone) like their single family homes and their yards and their car based lifestyle."

Of course, they don't necessarily like long commutes, congestion, rising gasoline bills, and so on. Nor the externalities in terms of environmental impact, national security (and hence federal taxes), and so on.

Moreover, single family homes with yards are consistent with the densities necessary to make public transit viable, as the streetcar subways demonstrated. In fact, using public transit for transportation tasks like daily commutes to employment centers is consistent with household car ownership for other transportation tasks.

Posted by DTM | May 19, 2008 4:11 PM

A seismic change in mind set, yes. But not necessarily the minds of the American people. As much as we think of ourselves as a democracy, the masses do not really set policy of course. It's the corporations and their lobbyists. Thus mass transit gets underfunded b/c it is a threat. If you design a well run, clean, efficient system people will use it. A lot. I think people actually like innovation and seeing intelligent uses of their tax dollars. If you build it, and it benefits them, they will come.

Posted by Lesley | May 19, 2008 4:12 PM

To build on what DTM said I live in the 2nd densest neighborhood in Portland. I'm in a 6 story condo on the corner of a mixed use street. Across the st is another condo builing, next to me and next to that building are 2 single family homes on each side of the street, then the next corner has commercial buldings and so on throughout most of the neighborhood.

SInlge family homes in this neighborhood are in high demand, the 1920's era 2300 SQ foot one 2 doors down from me just sold for $695,000 a bigger hous ein the suburbs is probably $300K.

If you to the inner east side where the orinigal suburbs were built in the 1900-1930 time frame you find neighborhoods that ren;t much denser than the modern suburbs in Beaverton. The difference is the older burbs are on straught grids with commerical streets mixe din every few blocks so poepel can walk to most of them. In the newer suburbs everything is the curvy self contained dead end neighborhoods where going a mile as the crow flies takes 2 or 3 miles of driving.

Based on property values I'd say people vastly prefer the inner 1st generation burbs, but limited supply forces them into the newer outer burbs.

This is alos an example of why simply measuring density doesn;t tell th ewhole story, it is how th ednesity is alid out that makes a big difference.

Posted by Eric K | May 19, 2008 4:29 PM

Everybody loves trains (as do I) but we could move to buses much more quickly and cheaply.

Posted by dissent | May 19, 2008 4:32 PM

While you're on a mass transit bender, Matt, you should look at PRT systems. No such system exists yet (though one is being built for Heathrow airport), but the idea is compelling.

personalrapidtransit.com gives a nice, quick explanation of the idea

Also, I did a blog post on it.

Posted by Brian | May 19, 2008 4:36 PM

DTM:
Of course, they don't necessarily like long commutes, congestion, rising gasoline bills, and so on.

Sure. I'm arguing with the idea that people who move/moved to the edge of the city were 100% forced into it and didn't trade off the positive and negative aspects.

Moreover, single family homes with yards are consistent with the densities necessary to make public transit viable, as the streetcar subways demonstrated. In fact, using public transit for transportation tasks like daily commutes to employment centers is consistent with household car ownership for other transportation tasks.

Sure, all true. But I'm talking about what people prefer to do, not what it's possible for them to do.

Lesley:
Thus mass transit gets underfunded b/c it is a threat.
Well, I don't know. I think mass transit is underfunded because most voters/taxpayers have no interest in using it, under the conditions that have prevailed in recent years. You can argue cause and effect.

If you design a well run, clean, efficient system people will use it. A lot.
If it's better than the alternative, they will.

I think people actually like innovation
Honestly, I see no evidence of this anywhere.

and seeing intelligent uses of their tax dollars.
Most people consider any use of tax dollars for something that doesn't benefit them directly to be ipso facto an unintelligent use.

If you build it, and it benefits them, they will come.
Right. And if it doesn't, they won't.

Man, I sound cynical. I'm pro mass transit, honestly, but being unrealistic about what people actually want doesn't get you anywhere.

Posted by BP Beckley | May 19, 2008 5:23 PM

Today in the "rush hour" commute window it takes me 1 hour to get to work. To get me into a train you have to

a) Lower that time significantly.

b) Make sure I'm seated. Standing for 45 minutes is worse than driving my car for an hour

c) Cost less

d) Be flexible in terms of when I can come/go

They are designing a "light rail" system for Honolulu county. As far as I can tell

a) It will take even longer to get to work when you count parking at the station, waiting for the train, etc.

b) I'll have to stand for most of that time

c) It will cost less

d) Very little flexibility - particularly in the beginning (when the train doesn't come within 10 miles of my house)

So its a no brainer for me. The rail system won't work. It won't even work for people who live close to the stations. With 36 stops to get down town even for them the trip will take a lot longer.

Posted by Paul Mooney | May 19, 2008 5:43 PM

Matt:

If you love Portland so much, why don't you just move here? (We get 75000 people to show up to see Obama, and 8000 of them show up on bikes.)

Eric K:

Do you live in the Pearl? I'm a SE man myself, and I love that single-family mixes well with 3-5 story condos and apartments (the bigger buildings located on the 5-8 block commercial street intervals) to create a very "neighborhoody" but pretty dense area. The secret is in the tiny yards we all have, and the mix of housing with businesses.

BTW, I've got a new theory that dogs are bad for livable, dense cities. A co-worker of mine had recently moved fairly close to the city center (NW Glisan for you, Eric) for quality of life, but when their lease was up, they decided to move way out to the car 'burbs (Tigard, if you can believe) because "the dog needs a yard to run around in." Of course, the dog really wants to be walked, which is easier to do in a dense neighborhood with good sidewalks and parks, but what with the extra commute, well, there's no time for that. So the yard fills with shit. Suburbs are big, inefficient dogshit receptacles for lazy people.

Posted by peejay | May 19, 2008 5:57 PM

"One piece of very low-hanging fruit is to promote denser development near our existing stations (instead of, e.g., bungalows and vacant lots near the Brookland Metro here in DC) which are often places where developers are clamoring to build and potential residents clamoring to live but incumbent property owners are trying to avoid sharing the wealth."

I'll be damned if I can figure out what that means except eminent domain. Bad idea, Matt. Very bad idea.

Posted by David Sucher | May 19, 2008 6:52 PM

The answer is pretty simple but can't work because it ain't sexy.

Express Bus Lanes

A bus going 55 MPH between stops can do just as well as rail.

A bus is far more flexible than rail.

A bus is far cheaper than rail.

It is far faster to set up an express bus lane.

The problem is that drivers will scream when they see an empty lane that rarely has a bus going down it.

The busiest subway lines in the world rarely have a train running more than every 2 minutes during rush hour.

So the bus lane will be virtually empty all the time.

Drivers will scream. But they won't scream if the rail line is virtually empty all the time.

The Express Bus Lane to the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey works pretty well. The problem arises when the buses need to merge with car traffic. Buses take most, far more than half, of the passengers through the tunnel but don't even get 25% of the lanes.

Posted by neil wilson | May 19, 2008 7:08 PM

Phoenix could have a wonderful bus system, with its square grid of straight, wide, fast, streets. But the buses only run every 30 minutes and they have to stop at red lights.

Simple traffic light switching technology, that always gave the bus a green light, would speed things up a ton, for a lot cheaper than building rail or buying twice as many buses.

Posted by Aatos | May 19, 2008 8:21 PM

"I'll be damned if I can figure out what that means except eminent domain. Bad idea, Matt. Very bad idea."

Eminent domain isn't bad in and of itself, only in erroneous application (ie Kelo). Indeed, unless you take a hardcore libertarian position, it's pretty much essential for infrastructure investement. There's no real difference between traditional eminent domain doctrine and, for example, the "compelling state interest" test in first amendment doctrine.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | May 19, 2008 8:35 PM

David Sucher, putting denser developments in bungalow farms does not require any use of eminent domain. Just rezoning.

Posted by Omri | May 19, 2008 9:32 PM

BP Beckley,

I'm talking about what people prefer as well (although of course preferences vary). The streetcar suburbs were very popular, including during the later period in which they co-existed with the automobile. But then the streetcar lines were ripped out, removing the public transit option that these suburbs were designed to use.

Nonetheless, these days many former streetcar suburbs are again very popular (judging from pricing), particularly the ones served by some form of convenient public transit (as they were designed to be). Meanwhile, modern "new urbanist" communities based on the same design principles also tend to be popular (again, judging from pricing). Indeed, unfortunately right now what were originally designed to be the working class and lower middle class options within streetcar suburbs and new urbanist developments are often being occupied by upper middle/professional class people, because they are the only ones who can afford to live in these places at the current prices.

So, I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the "streetcar suburb" model from the demand side, and indeed think it is quite obvious there is an artificial scarcity in these communities. In fact, I think many people were essentially "forced" out of streetcar suburbs by the dismantling of the streetcar lines without a suitable public transit replacement. And as Matt and others have pointed out, various zoning regulations often tend to prevent "new urbanist" developments along those lines even where public transit is an option, meaning where "new urbanist" developers would be the highest bidders for the relevant land if they were allowed to be the buyers.

Fortunately, bus rapid transit (variations on which are being discussed above) can more or less duplicate the same sort of service as the former streetcar lines, and BRT has lots of other advantages (including flexibility, scalability, upgradability, and so on). Meanwhile, I think the public pressure will keep mounting for more public transit investment and zoning reforms which will allow the supply of "streetcar suburb" communities to finally match the underlying demand once again.

Posted by DTM | May 19, 2008 9:44 PM

Peejay,

I'm, in NW, I think we are slighlty less dense than the Pearl.

The Dog excuse is pretty lame, what people are really saying is I'm too lazy to play with my dog so I'll let him roam in the yard instead. I live 2 blocks from Couch park one of the many dog parks in the city. Yo people, what your dog really wants is you to spend an hour with him tossing a ball in the park, not being left alone by himself in a postage stamp suburban yard.

Posted by eric k | May 19, 2008 11:22 PM

Neil, Chicago's about to try that very thing.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/transportation/chi-getting-around-12may12,0,1542213.column

It will be interesting to see how it works. Still, it's a step forward for Chicago's "green" mayor. Daley's previous idea was to schedule street lights to make downtown more car-friendly.

Posted by Judy | May 19, 2008 11:23 PM

If the Bay Area only had three separate rail systems, we'd be in better shape. I'm counting six (BART, Caltrain, Muni light rail, VTA light rail, ACE, and Amtrak), and I'm sure I've forgotten about a few more. I know of one proposal to create yet another entirely new rail system, and I'm sure, again, that if there's one example I'm thinking of there must be at least one more that I've forgotten about.

And for those who don't live in the Bay Area, this fragmentation causes real harm. The most obvious problem is that schedules and fare systems aren't coordinated, meaning that trips may be very expensive and may take hours longer than they ought to. And in some cases transfers are just impossible, for no good reason. Caltrain goes to San Fransisco, but to a part of San Francisco that's a mile away from the Transbay buses, the ferry, and most Muni lines. ACE and BART both have stations in Pleasanton and Fremont, but in both cases the stations are in different parts of town, miles apart. And so on...

Posted by Matt Austern | May 20, 2008 12:09 AM

Eric K:

Dude, that friend of mine lived right next to Couch Park, and still is willing to move out to Tigard! Not sure I can really talk to her any more.

If you show up Friday at the Green Dragon (SE Yamhill & 9th), I'll buy you a beer. I ride a black Cinelli fixie.

Matt really should move here. Then we'd know a famous Washington insider.

Posted by peejay | May 20, 2008 12:48 AM

You can have successful urban rail lines over rather long distances. The Paris RER Line A is an example. It is even a victim of its success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RER_A

"Line A is Europe's busiest line with over 1,000,000 passenger/day."

Inter-city rail lines also interest other countries.

"Argentina on Tuesday signed a contract with a consortium led by Alstom of France to build the first high-speed train in the Americas, linking Buenos Aires with the cities of Rosario and Córdoba in three hours, nearly a fifth of the current journey time."

http://tinyurl.com/6f3c4g

____

Posted by bernarda | May 20, 2008 4:39 AM

I live in Virginia and work in DC, and ride the VRE every workday. I wouldn't say it sucks, but could be improved. the two main aspects of its problems are 1) old crappy cars, 2) poor on-time performance. the old crappy cars are being replaced over the course of '08, so that will everntually stop being a problem, but the poor on-time performance isn't easily addressed. VRE needs new engines, and VA is having funding issues, and VRE uses Norfolk-Southern and CSX freight rail lines for all but a tiny bit of its operation. While the commuter trains are supposed to have priority over the freight, it's easy to get stuck. VRE can't readily control that, though they are investing expanding the rails (3rd tracks, 2nd track on a particular bottleneck bridge, etc.).

even with the problems, VRE reports an 18% increase in ridership above this time last year.

Posted by mrfred | May 20, 2008 8:59 AM

I think a big part of the reason people like rail is that they knew perfectly well the bus/rapid bus/super duper bus is just going to get cut in next year's round of transit budget cuts, but the rail line, now that you've spent all that money building it, probably won't be abandoned quite so easily. You might even build some sort of housing or businesses right next to the rail stop, transit-oriented development, you might call it. You wouldn't locate something because a bus route runs past, the bus will just get re-routed or canceled altogether sometime soon, like they always do.

Posted by Beige | May 20, 2008 10:13 AM

Beige,

That is an interesting point, but I would note that bus rapid transit can have some sunk infrastructure costs, such as dedicated busways.

Posted by DTM | May 20, 2008 10:58 AM

Seattle Public television had a mini-documentary on mass transit and how it shaped growth in Seattle and the surrounding areas.

One interesting fact is that the rail lines were built by private interests in order to spur development. After the lines were in, land developers built houses along the routes.

Unfortunately these lines have long been removed (replaced with heavy rail) and our new light rail system has been forced to use elevated, or tunneled (and very expensive) lines.

The original lines also allowed farmers to move their goods into town.

Posted by tomj | May 20, 2008 11:19 AM

I'm guessing the successful communities of the future will skip the Bus Rapid Transit and just install streetcars and light rail.

BRT, of course, is part of the brilliant and dynamic plan the IMF and World Bank used to persuade third-world countries, and third-world regions of the US, to use buses and trucks instead of rail for transportation- thus dramatically increasing the competition to buy oil. Yup, mission accomplished.

BRT advocates range from the fanatic to the gullible. The phrases roll off their tongues- "flexible, scalable". But when you point out that, because rail isn't "flexible", people will invest much more to be on a rail line, they're all like "Oh no, nobody was talking about changing routes or discontinuing service!" All of a sudden they're saying that they never meant BRT would actually be flexible.

BRT isn't really that scalable. You can't link buses together in trains, so for every bus you add a driver, i.e., labor, a very expensive part of doing something. Buses are less efficient than rail vehicles, so the more buses you have the bigger penalty you pay. And, of course, buses become part of a turbulent flow problem, the phenomena by which traffic jams are formed with no visible cause.

At this point the BRT advocate usually says that of course they meant electric buses running in separate right-of-way with dedicated signaling and station stops. In this grand 'bait' part of the old bait-and-switch they're proposing to spend as much building a busway as you would spend building a rail line, but retain the built-in lack of scalability and inefficiency of the buses. Not to worry, the 'BRT' you ride will be an ordinary bus with a special paint job.

John Q. Public remains unconvinced by this shuffalo-to-Buffalo routine. Put in a streetcar where buses once ran, and ridership goes up, property values go up, density goes up, and revenue goes up. It seems the average guy likes the fact that streetcars are visibly permanent and provide a smoother and more comfortable ride.

And these results are robust at all levels of analysis.

Posted by serial catowner | May 20, 2008 11:49 AM

serial catowner,

First, BRT and light rail are not mutually exclusive--both have viable applications. Generally, public transit advocates do themselves no favors when they become fans of just one sort of technology.

Second, you don't have to operate a bus on petroleum-based fuels, regardless of whether or not it is part of a BRT system.

Third, I'm one of the people who used the phrases "flexible" and "scalable", and I just agreed that Beige had a legitimate point about people preferring to invest where large sunk infrastructure costs make the continuation of public transit service more likely (again with the caveat that BRT can involve some sunk infrastructure costs). Generally, I agree there is a legitimate tradeoff between flexibility and certainty, but of course that just supports the idea that one or the other solution could be best in different circumstances.

Fourth, the fact that you have to add a driver per bus doesn't show BRT isn't scalable: in fact that is just a constant marginal operating cost, and such costs are consistent with scalability (because there typically is some constant marginal cost associated with increases in scale--indeed the point is those costs are constant and not increasing at that margins).

Fifth, trains are indeed more efficient on a given high volume route, but the conversely the possible light rail routes are limited to those with a high volume, due to the high infrastructure costs. Again, that is a large part of why light rail and BRT both have valid applications. To slightly oversimplify, if you are taking enough people from Point A to Point B at the same time, a train may be the most efficient solution. But if you are taking people from a lot of points (A1, A2, A3, A4 ... An) to Point B, a BRT system may be the better way to go. That is because the volume on each of the An to B routes may not be high enough to justify the costs of a rail line along each of those routes, and BRT provides an alternative.

Sixth, I think you are misunderstanding how an integrated BRT system can work. Continuing the example above, each individual bus serving points A1 through An may start in mixed traffic, and only enter a dedicated busway as they run together from Region A to Point B. But that dedicated busway from Region A to Point B may be enough to avoid the highway congestion along this route, making this system competitive with driving. And yet this solution did not require building dedicated busways to all of A1 through An.

That in a nutshell is the chief advantage of BRT over light rail: it allows you to use dedicated rights of way and infrastructure for public transit only where that is truly needed, and mixed-use rights of way and infrastructure where dedicated routes are not needed. And that ability to move from mixed-use to dedicated routes allows rapid public transit service to more locations than could be served if you had to build dedicated rights of way and infrastructure the whole length of each route.

Again, though, if you project that the volume of traffic along a given route will be high enough, then I agree the operating efficiencies and other advantages of light rail may take over and make it a better solution than BRT.

Posted by DTM | May 20, 2008 1:07 PM

Well, DTM, you're kinda doing some of what I said BRT backers will do, and kinda missing some of my points.

Sure, you can take a bus and run it in a dedicated lane on the freeway and on city streets at the end. That's not BRT, though, that's just a bus.

My points about scalability are these-

First, steel-wheel-on-steel-rail is inherently more efficient than rubber tire on pavement. At low traffic volumes this is outweighed by the increased costs of financing a rail system. But the inefficiency remains and the more traffic you have the more you pay for the inefficiency, until a) you pass the point where you're paying more for the inefficiency than you would be paying to have financed a rail system, and b) the next point where the gross amount of the inefficiency charges becomes more than the community can bear.

Secondly, the point at which adding more buses becomes too much of a headache is much lower than the point at which adding more rail cars becomes too much to bear.

In a sense, this is a discussion nobody needs to be having, because new and coming streetcar and light rail lines are proving to be so decisive in stimulating 'smart growth' that the verdict is almost in already.

Incidentally, because Seattle lagged so badly before finally making start on light rail and trolleys, we have a lot of discussion about these things at Seattle transit blogs here and here.

Posted by serial catowner | May 20, 2008 1:48 PM

serial catowner,

First, a dedicated busway need not be a dedicated lane on a freeway (see things like the Ottawa Transitway and Pittsburgh Busway). But in any event, I am not sure why you think a dedicated freeway lane doesn't qualify as "bus rapid transit". And regardless of what you want to call it and how it is implemented, the bottomline is that such a system can be competitive in terms of convenience with commuting by car (to the extent it avoids congestion), and more efficient as well.

Second, I have already agreed that when the projected volume on the relevant route is high enough, the operating efficiencies of light rail make it the preferred technological choice. That is a large part of why I stated at the outset I believe that light rail is in fact the right solution in many cases.

Third, I'm not sure what you mean by the claim: "the point at which adding more buses becomes too much of a headache is much lower than the point at which adding more rail cars becomes too much to bear." But what I would say is that at the lowest volumes, individual motorized vehicles (e.g., cars), can be the right approach for transit on that route, even though they are the least efficient from an operating cost perspective. Conversely, at the highest volumes, light rail becomes the right approach precisely because it is the most efficient from an operating cost perspective. But there is a volume range in between cars and trains, meaning a range where BRT can be competitive with cars thanks to problems like congestion, but the volumes are not high enough to support light rail. Again though, if the projected route volume is above this range, then light rail (assuming no scarcity restraints) is preferable to BRT. If that is all you meant, then we agree.

Fourth, this discussion is relevant because of the very wide variety of circumstances in which people could be served by viable public transit, now and in the future. In that sense, it really just limits the total amount of public transit available by insisting on using only one sort of transit technology, as opposed to using whatever technology is best in a given circumstance.

Posted by DTM | May 20, 2008 3:13 PM