Quote:
Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan
Check out this post from M1EK's favorite transit blog (after his of course).
|
It must be nice to be able to lob those kind of underhanded jibes from behind the cover of anonymity and know you'll never suffer for it.
Quote:
It discusses the central diemna in long range transit planning: do you put all of your resources into the best possible transit technology that serves your most important corridor; or do you make smaller improvements throughout your entire service area?
LACMTA (Los Angeles) started on the first strategy with the Red Line subway, but were forced by a variety of circumstances to shift course and pursue the second. Part of this new strategy involved the development of Rapid Bus.
When Cap Metro was forced to rethink it's strategy via the All Systems Go! long range transit plan, it looked to the LA example for part of the solution: Rapid Bus.
Today, after LA developed numerous Rapid Bus lines, two LRT lines and one BRT line, they are again considering an extension of the subway. One of the corridors under examination is one of the first Rapid Bus lines on Wilshire Blvd. At the same time, they are studying the implementation of dedicated bus lanes on Wilshire to make Rapid Bus more like BRT. It should be noted that the Wilshire Rapid Bus has roughly half the daily ridership as the LA subway.
Rapid Bus does not necessarily compete with rail development. The LA example shows how simple, inexpensive technologies can be used to build ridership for further rail development, and serve a broader segment of the community in the mean time.
|
Rapid Bus does, in fact, compete with rail development, at least here in Austin. We don't have enough local dollars to pay for even a minimal investment in rail right now - Rapid Bus is expensive even at 20%; and Rapid Bus is going to be sitting on the corridor we all know is crying out for rail transit; yet it provides almost nothing that could be re-used for rail transit later on, and makes it far more politically difficult to develop rail there later.
"BRT as a placeholder for rail" has been championed all over the country, but it has in almost every instance been a lie - the real decision was "BRT now or rail later"; because most of the investment doesn't carry over; and it's politically difficult to say later on "sorry, the bus really wasn't good enough for this corridor after all". With the exception of our neighbors to the north, nobody's ever delivered on the "rail later" part; and nobody appears seriously interested in doing so (even in LA,
where the Orange Line, also Rapid Bus, is a debacle - over capacity (but under utilized compared to a decent light rail line) but will likely never be converted to rail - even as the vehicles wear out the transitway).
WRT Jarrett, one of the places I disagree strongly with him is on the concept of 'choice commuter' - he has largely been working on cities (at least recently) where a huge population of transit-dependent commuters exists and isn't fully comprised of the lower economic classes. (Even in LA, although most transit-dependent commuters are poor, there's so many of them that the economics and politics are vastly different than here). He doesn't therefore really understand how critical it is to appeal to current non-riders of the system with something that, even if the current non-riders don't use, they can envision themselves using later on or in another corridor.
In Austin, delivering bus service of higher frequency or very minimal quality improvements to current transit riders at the expensive of MUCH better quality (i.e. rail) service to new (choice) riders means those new choice riders (and the ten non-riders who talk to them every day) never start riding (
nobody who doesn't take the bus now is going to start because of Rapid Bus). And here's the important part:
in our city, as in Dallas and Houston, the danger is that when transit is viewed as a service ONLY for the poor and carless, voters will eventually fall prey to the siren song of the Jim Skaggses of the world and cut the public subsidy to the system.
By the way, for those tempted to believe SAM, consider the comments in this article (unusually contradictory to Jarrett). A couple of examples which apply DIRECTLY to what we're about to do here in Austin (italics something they're responding to)
Quote:
You keep bringing up the limiteds, and I never quite get what you're after.
Here's the high concept: Metro Rapid is rapid transit with a s--- eating grin.
Yes, there used to be limteds, but my understanding is that they didn't have the standardized frequency and service span, nor did they have the signal priority capabilities of the Rapid.
The signal "priority" capabilities are pointless.
LADOT, not Metro, controls the signal priority. And you know what happens when you let a bunch of traffic engineers solve a transit problem.
Buses do not get priority. They get conditional signal extensions. First, the signal system must check to see that intersecting traffic is not backed up. Second, LADOT fixes signal priority to the lines' fixed headway.
Example: If a Rapid line runs every 15 minutes, and the first of two buses is 10 minutes late (with the trailing bus on time but 5 minutes behind the late bus), the late bus will get the alloted signal pre-emption, but the signal system won't give the on-time bus pre-emption.
Limiteds used to be thought of as supplements to locals only when demand warrants, and the Rapid program changed that priority and created standard service levels all day.
No, the BRT grant changed that priority.
Metro does a pole dance to deceive minds into believing that a long-standing operational solution is now considered the equivalent of a rail service.
Here's a simple syllogism.
1. Operationally, limited-stop buses and Rapid buses are identical.
2. Under BRT grant guidelines, a bus rapid transit application as the agency defines it is the service equivalent of a rail service. (I am reminded of the Michael Setty vs. Tom Rubin debate over modal equivalency.)
Therefore
3. Limited-stop buses and rail are identical.
This is not my logic. It's Metro's.
Let me make myself clear. I am fine with the delivery of Rapid service. I do caution people to avoid falling into the logic pit that I have outlined above.
|
and addressing the issue of converting, later, to rail:
Quote:
Jarrett, I'd argue that all investments are necessarily deployed gradually, but I see your point that some may be deployed significantly more slowly. I'd also argue though, that transport planners fail to adequately conceptualise the sort of transitional change that is required under those constraints.
To put it another way, you only get a clean slate once. Every future transport project will be assessed int he context of what is there, and I'd argue, that if your end goal is a subway system, that the existence of BRT lines will be an impediment to that conversion. It will be argued that you can't remove the old line because it will have developed a niche market of shorter trips that the subway will serve poorly; it will also be argued that the subway will not add much value, because a BRT already serves the area, and therefore it crowds out potential trips, and lowers the investment potential of the new line. So, while I see your point that something is better than nothing, the manner in which transport interacts with the city risks embedding something worse than what you might actually prefer (or need).
|
Note that I commented on the post way back in November as well
here with basically the political choice commuter argument and got this response:
Quote:
M1EK,
You've just described the difference between what happened in Los Angeles County where Measure R passed (raising the sales tax a half-cent in the middle of a recession) and Orange County where 8% of all bus service is being cut while freeways continue to be expanded.
|
I wonder if SAM even read the comments before posting this link.
Prev
Linear Mode
