BRT Buffoonery and a word about Susan Heyes

Some interesting costs associated with BRT. If the following is to be believed, then BRT is more expensive to build and operate than light rail. Maybe that’s why TransLink wants to build BRT in the Fraser Valley. With TransLink, if it costs more to build and operate than light rail, they build it!

Pittsburg BRT, costs more to build and operate than light rail.

From the LRPPro blog.

Ripping out railroad tracks to build a BRT is a total waste of money

we are very short on. Pittsburgh did that on their terribly inefficient

West BusWay in about 2000AD. The BusWay was to run from

Golden Triangle (downtown) to Carnegie, PA., about 8 miles

but they called it the Airport BusWay to get support for it. It was

not to go anywhere near the airport but the AIrport buses would

use part of it even though they already had an interstate highway

279 to run on. It was to cost $ 325 million to build = $ 40 million

per mile over ten years ago. A crooked Senator got Congress to

waive the law and the agreement that required Allegheny County

to ante up the $ 200 million shortfall when the bids came in at

$ 525 million, $ 65 million per mile, far more than Light Rail but

the rotten government let the Port Authority allege that the Bus

Way was only one-third the cost of Light Rail. They supported

that lie by using the cost of the Buffalo full subway when they

should have used the cost of Salt Lake City which was built on

RR tracks.

I was so mad I wrote the FTA about it and I got a lying letter

back explaining that if they built half of the BusWay fofr $ 285

million it would be a better deal than building it all for $ 525

million. NOT TRUE AT ALL. They now attract only 9,000 of

the promised 50,000 weekday passengers.

Or abstractly, Light rail now costs $ 240 average per car hour for 125 passengers in the rush hour = $ 1.92 per passenger.

Buses now cost $ 120 per hour for 57 peak passengers

= $ 2.11 per passenger PLUS 12 % for BusWay and station

maintenance, ploughing and 6 % for proof of payment fare

collection which cost is included in Light Rail basic data.

Sure, a Bus Way would probably use articulated buses with

87 peak capacity but Operations Research study of actual

articulated bus operation in Los Angeles found they cost more

per passenger than 40-foot buses because of complexity and

slower movement.

The TRB has that data. The BusWay bus cost will be $ 2.50 per

passenger, THIRTY PERCENT MORE THAN LRT.

“If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass–a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience–by experience.”