Bus Rapid Transit versus Light Rail
Recently I worked by darndest to convince a Phx transit fan,
exit2lef, that BRT was the next great thing. Problem was he wasn't buying what I was selling. I think his problem is that like
Cirrus he knows too much.
His view is that BRT is NOT train-like, even a little bit like many transit advocates try to claim. One example is the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy pushes that notion. Admittedly
Cirrus has mentioned the differences in ride and appeal.
exit2lef asserts that if a corridor is worth substantial investment then it should be in light rail and not BRT. He believes that by the time you spend the money to do BRT the right way and consider the shorter lifecycle of buses, you might as well spend a little more and ride the rails. He has experience riding Boston's BRT as well as Seattle's RapidRide buses and he was disappointed in both cases. There's no question that the average Joe and Juanita and especially choice riders think that light rail is much better than buses.
That's the BRT view from the desert.