Light Rail vs. Bus Rapid Transit - Battle of the Titans?: Ep. 2
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- čas přidán 10. 07. 2024
- Bus rapid transit in the U. S. is often touted as a cost-saving alternative to light rail. We cover the history and context of both systems in depth: light rail arose as a cost-effective way to reconstruct the rail systems of yore in a modern era of government. Bus rapid transit has a rockier history, starting in the U. S. but only really getting off the ground in South America; it then came back to the U. S. in cost-cut form. We explain what has gone wrong with modern American BRT and ask the raging question: should the competition between light rail and BRT even be a competition at all?
Links and stuffs
Twitter: / theredline_pod
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5xIduYk...
Patreon: / theredlinepodcasters
Email: theredlinepodcasters@gmail.com
Website: www.trlpod.com/
Timestamps
00:00 Light rail vs. bus rapid transit, or should it even be a battle?
03:03 Theme song
03:33 Welcome & what we're talking about
04:24 Light rail transit (LRT) [3] [5] [6]
05:24 History of passenger rail
06:16 Modern light rail [4]
08:12 Success of light rail
09:04 Light rail vs. streetcar [10]
10:36 Ridership
11:14 Flexibility of light rail
12:48 Metro, if only
14:09 Characteristics of light rail
15:06 Capacity
15:52 Frequency
16:27 Stations & length
17:21 Bus rapid transit (BRT) [12]
17:59 What is BRT? [9]
19:08 Origins
20:00 Failures in ridership
20:42 Modern BRT (Brazil)
22:05 BRT enters the United States
23:06 Interests pushing for BRT [7]
24:07 South America loves BRT: TransMilenio
25:10 New York subway
25:50 Explosion of BRT, nothing wrong with excellent bus service
27:45 Flexibility of BRT
28:12 Iconic stations
28:58 Bendy buses, double-decker buses
29:53 Branded as different and faster than normal buses
31:06 LRT vs. BRT [8] [14] [16] [17] [22] [26]
31:26 Cost to build [25]
31:59 Vehicle cost, Made in America tax
32:52 Cost per mile
33:54 MBTA Silver Line [15]
34:50 Tracks aren't that expensive
36:20 Long-term costs
37:20 Real-world operating costs [13] [23]
38:48 Vehicle replacement
40:59 Light rail is cheaper overall
41:29 Attracting development
42:48 Real BRT isn't what's getting built [11] [19] [20] [21] [24]
43:57 BRT creep
44:39 Not a substitute for light rail
45:50 BRT in the U. S. is slow
47:05 Attracting ridership [1] [2] [18]
48:16 People want trains, qualitative factors
49:56 Meeting people from a fancy hotel
50:54 Car dependency
52:34 We are pro-improved bus service
54:02 Summary
54:18 Spotify, CZcams, website, Twitter, and Patreon plugs
54:53 Bye!
References
[1] lightrailnow.org/myths/m_lrt0...
[2] lightrailnow.org/news/n_den00...
[3] rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/30467
[4] www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...
[5] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
[6] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_r...
[7] www.dissentmagazine.org/artic...
[8] reason.org/transportation-new...
[9] www.itdp.org/library/standard...
[10] ggwash.org/view/36980/how-to-...
[11] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rap...
[12] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rap...
[13] www.transit.dot.gov/ntd
[14] www.reconnectingamerica.org/as...
[15] archive.boston.com/news/local/...
[16] www.thetransportpolitic.com/2...
[17] lightrailnow.org/features/f_b...
[18] lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_brt...
[19] ggwash.org/view/8595/brt-cree...
[20] www.itdp.org/library/standard...
[21] ggwash.org/view/29962/the-us-...
[22] journalistsresource.org/econo...
[23] docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
[24] ggwash.org/view/8595/brt-cree...
[25] brtguide.itdp.org/branch/mast...
[26] www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta...
![How Suburban Development Makes American Cities Poorer [ST02]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VVUeqxXwCA0/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm watching from Bogotá, I was just having a Twitter discussion over why our BRT is inappropriate for the needs such a big City, and how a LR sistem would have been ideal if they would have built one instead, it was overwhelming and I needed a safe place, thank you guys, this was a great video, very calming and enjoyable.
Lol, I agree. But the Trans-millenio is extremely well designed for what it is, I went to bogata 2 months ago, and was absolutely amazed by the high floor busses, smooth rides, platform doors, and the amount of BRT network in the city! yes I agree it should have a metro, but the BRT system there is a world model.
@@WBTravels I frankly believe that the principle of a bus system that works in main streets and avenues, ends up perpetrating car based infrastructure and segregating the city, also contributing to public space deterioration, there is no place for DOT and often travel experience is noisy and people are exposed to polluted air, additionally having stations in the middle of the stroads means that the space is very limited, when there is high demand it is difficult to wait for your bus, there's a lot people on the doors, lastly travel times are often too long due to the BRT being used to cover long distance rides in a city like Bogota, buses have to stop at red lights, and when they don't it means that instead of having a surface pedestrian crossing they choose to build an inconvenient pedestrian bridge, TM has resulted in a horrible city development, I personally see it as a curse on the city, but you are right, the system tries extremely hard to compensate it's inherent limitations.
I wish Transmilenio lived up to the way it sounds here because, yeah, on paper it's an impressive system, but overcrowding, management, and lack of maintenance makes it borderline unusable during around rush hour. Very helpful to your case that one of the most successful instances of BRT in the world is in desperate need of a rail system to complement it
Agreed! We're hoping to make a future video on Transmillenio and other Latin American/East Asian BRT systems. Thanks for watching!
Light Rail Transit - Tram or Streetcar like Train Mass Rail Transit - HST - High Speed Train System. Where Bus Rapid Transit are Electric bus or Trolleybus or petrol or diesel Bus cut down to Fossil Energy Green Emission in future.
I can attest to busses sucking in America. I used to live in Seattle (a city literally known for the largest trolleybus network in the world (or at least the entire north america) and good frequencies. I lived in a suburb called Edmonds, (we moved there 11 years ago because my dad didnt want to live in the city but my mom needed a train to get to work.) at that time they just heard of sounder and thought ohh yes train=good frequent fast connection to downtown.. (for context to that we used to live in D.C so they bassically thought of sounder as a cross between the WMATA MetroRail & MARC commuter rail.) What we got in the end was a spectacularly scenic commuter rail line called the N Line.. it runs 4 times per day... 2 in the morning & 2 in the evening even though it connects a city of 700,000 people to 2 suburbs of 50,000 people, to a city of 150,000 people! I now for 5 months, am living in Buenos Aires argentina, a city that excells in just about everything transit. 5 Metro lines with great alignments, a suburban tram line, 5 BRT corridors (dedicated roads in the middle of insanely large avenues filled with green space notably "9 de julio". but the difference is any bus can use the corridor at any point in its route, so its not just 1 line, its a total of 200 lines using this corridor for 22 miles. that corridor also has a metro running down it & crossing it at various points. local busses here, are so frequent google maps doesnt even want you to take the train lines, but the busses because there are so many routes, its always more direct and "faster" than the train, but loving trains i still take the trains lol. Local busses here come every 3-4 minutes sometimes every 2, and they are ALWAYS crowded even at 1-3 AM, oh yah everything here runs 24 hours a day! last thing I will say is the "commuter rail" in Buenos Aires is an examplar for every regional rail system in the world. it has 29 Lines, covering 400 miles of track, 26 of those are electric and operate brand new high capacity EMU's from CRRC. there frequency is at the lowest hourly (on some of the last remaining diesel lines-that are being electrified and there is maintained hence low frequency) but at the highest every 8 minutes! oh, and the entire country of Argentina, uses 1 fare card the SUBE "get on card".
BRT is better for low density cities and will be much more effective and cost effective for North American cities then Rail. Especially when dedicated busway BRT can go the same speed as most LRT's anyway. Look up the Winnipeg Blue Line if you want to see what a good BRT looks like it has a top speed of 80 km/h competitive with most urban LRTs. Repurposing wide ass stroads with a measly curb rather then implementing rail and having to buy trains (which are significantly more expensive then busses btw).
We would be more on board with BRT if it was spun as "look, we slapped 'bus' on one of our lanes, messed with the signals, and now the bus goes fast. It cost us $10 million." The problem with BRT, as we discuss, is that it's spun as a massive infrastructure project (with a massive price tag, think $100-200 million or more) that "replaces" rail service. Those two sentences are adjacent but different concepts, and the first one is, like you said, potentially a very good idea.
@@TRLPod thanks for the reply. I 100% agree that it CANNOT be an alternative to rail simply because it’s not as scaleable, and if you look at most transit agencies the majority of expenditures come from wages and benefits for drivers. Which means for transit systems to generate profit they require less drivers/conductors and rail transit already has achieved automation while BRT is not there yet (New Flyer is at stage 4 for automation so they’re very close.)
These are two different modes of transit. While they complement each other they should not be compared. It's like comparing a tractor trailer with a delivery van. They serve different purposes.
My friend's silver line what a hell of a story for a rapid transit bus line or not real
I personally don't like to use the term "LRT" as it has 2 different abbreviations. Light Rail Transit that could either mean light metro system running on grade separated tracks like full scale metro system but using LRVs, or trams that run on streets. Meanwhile Light Rapid Transit is basically another term for light metro system.
Agreed, I generally prefer to use "Light Rail" for the sort of distinctly North American mixed operation systems that we mostly discuss in this video, because of how nebulous the concept of 'LRT' is. Thanks for commenting!
I’ve never seen too many people use the abbreviation LRT for rapid transit. Most people or transit agencies use it specifically for Light Rail Transit while using the long form version for Light Rapid Transit.
That being said, the abbreviation in LRT seems to be the standard in Canada while Light Rail seems to be the standard term used in the US.
Looking forward to seeing how Austin's light rail turns out, we're supposed to get to light rail lines with buried downtown segments and a second commuter line in the expansion we voted for. Meanwhile we have the worst form of "Rapid" buses, literally just more frequent service with fewer stops, alleged signal priority and running on some of the worst maintained roads in the city.
Side note we gotta make being smug about riding transit more mainstream.
@7:21 good point, somehow San Diego also manages to have what is quite probably the most iconic LRT (light rail Train) in the world, even popping up when you just put san diego into google, it also has one of the best, known for being fast, freuquent, and very extensive, only helped by the COASTER (one of thhe most frequent systems in the country, and one of the best, and thats only helped by the sprinter a high frequency diesel regional rail / light rail line that branches off the main coaster line at oceanside. but yah $7 Million Per Mile is crazy, because seattle is currently building a 3.4 mile extension (albeit stupidly on a bridge instead of the I5 median, that already has a median bus station large enough for link trains and a median designed for rail alignment) for 4.8 Billion yes Billion dollers.
@9:43 I feel your pain, but its nowhere near as bad as Seattle, we built our system, designed as a city-airport connection, so instead of using a perfectly good half abandoned rail yard weird right of way but perfectly straight, we made it go under a mountain, street run for 4 miles 9that section takes 20 minutes, yes 20 minutes average speed of 10 Miles per hour) and it also has every single one of the least used stations on the line, it then crosses back over I-5 and ends just 4 miles away from where it curved off, going the exact same direction, but 35 minutes later after loading & offloading a maximum of 30 people. for contect as to how horrendous that is, the Light rail stops at international district chinatown then tukwilla aka king street station & then tukwilla (with stops in between) the Sounder S line (aka our actually good commuter rail / regional rail because the T link in tacoma is now opened its new extension making it the smallest city in North America with rapid transit", is now getting half-hourly frequencies, all day long with bi-directional service. anyway the Sounder S line, runs from Seattle-Tukwilla (Albeit a station .7 miles away from the Link LRT station-connected by a RapidRide bus every 10 minutes) does that journey in 15 minutes, the same journey the Link does in 38 Minutes.
brt is easier to implement than lrt. it's especially useful in area's where retail sprawl exist. the seattle area's "brt" along the pac highway for instance. unfortunately the "brt" does not have it's own right of way nor does it have traffic light preference, nor does it have center median loading and unloading. so yeah, it may be a distant second to lrt , but that is because of the american driving public not wanting anything encumbering their killing of the earth. 29:37 Snohomish countie's double decker bus going into seattle was always fun to ride across the ship canal bridge, when the light rail replaced much of that line i was forced underground but saved an hour.
Thanks for the video!
@13:28 Seattle built its Light rail underground for earthquake prevention, and bassically know its known to everyone, if the giant earthquake strikes, use the link. It has a purposeful tunnel right of way that is not under any buildings, but in between them, meaning if they collapse (highly unlikely considering seattle is mostly earthquake standard approved) the link tunnels, will still be fine. and they are even designed to stand up to a 9.0 earthquake.
Typically a light rail in the US is just a rapid tramway. In the UK light rail is a legally distinct moddle ground between trains and trams. That is why the croyden tram (though built to a high standard for an American light rail) exists in the same town as the DLR.
the croyden tram is a perfect example on a good high quality extensive light rail network, a street running segment that is relatively short, and serves all the main destinations in a 1 way loop, with fast 50 MPH running on old rail alignments with low stop spacing for a tram.
2:22 if it can get stuck in normal traffic, it's just a bus service, not a BRT (which uses its own lanes, you even read it @ 18:38, so you're clearly biased 38:38, 43:43).
Reminds me of the now defunct 35 MAX route.
Except the cost-per-mile on that one was actually sane. I wish UTA had been able to build more "improved" bus routes like that. www.thetransportpolitic.com/2010/04/06/salt-lake-city-opens-first-separated-lane-brt-corridor-plans-for-more/
@11:43 My friend... we need to talk.... The LINK is 100% and absolutely not the Best Light rail in the country, as a daily rider (previous daily rider of the system)... it was built for 9 Billion dollers, and we voted no on a full on metro in 1984 (thanks MARTA.. thats great really fucking great) we essentially built a metro, using trams, with the wierdest street running section ever, without traffic signal priority, and the best part about it was the busses being able to use the downtown tunnel's illiminating traffic congestion, and allowing busses to speed through the city, out the the suburbs instead of using a 4 lane road up above, (and keeping the drugged hell that is now seattle, out of the Link system) (and the busses). anyway, the busses are now out, but the speedlimites are still at max 30 MPH in the main downtown core (albeit 50 MPH on the new sections) Its an ok system, but it honestly should be an S bhan, the streetrunning segment should run as a separate branch line, the trains should use the direct rail connection to tukwilla, and that way the eventually 150 mile long system, will be actually pleasent and fast to ride.
The UVX has an average speed of 24km/hr based on an end to end scheduled time of 44minutes over a 17.7km line length.
True, LRT beats BRT anytime, but what about the cities that do a half-assed job of it by putting LRTs on city streets on the curb? (like Detroit or Kansas City) they defeat the purpose and the expense by making them vulnerable to bicyclists, illegally parked cars and trucks, delivery and emergency vehicles, etc. And Detroit and Milwaukee show NO bureaucratic shame in having them go only a few miles to serve the wealthy and near-wealthy, who have chosen not to drive. I think the real way to improve public transportation starts with the voting-out of these corrupt politicians FIRST! (but that's just me, I guess). 🐰
Well, I would say that those particular examples fall more under the 'streetcar' category than proper light rail, but I can certainly agree that many streetcar projects are not in any way equitable :)
Two different modes for two different applications. They don't compete, they can compliment each other nicely.
Visit a real BRT system. Performance exceeds LRV and is a more advanced technology.
What BRT systems would you suggest? We will happily look into it.
It has higher maintenance costs though, especially labour costs (and this difference will only increase as light rail is easier to automate). That‘s why the biggest and most successful BRTs are in South America, where labour costs are cheap and not in Europe or Asia.
Transmilenio is a scam.
Not a clue what they are talking about.