A big impediment to transit growth in our regions has to be the bitterly divided views of light rail and bus proponents.
I discovered that following an August column focused on Honolulu’s transition from attempted light rail a decade ago to a busway now. As U.S. metro regions face ever-more-horrific traffic crunches, I suggested, busways might at least offer quicker and less expensive alternatives — at least until growing ridership justifies a switch to rail.
Heresy! Suddenly, I found myself in the midst of a statistical food fight between rail and bus proponents. From coast to coast, the squash came flying in, then the peas, a veritable e-mail barrage.
I’d been “cuckolded by the busway fraud,” wrote one reader, citing alleged inflated costs and unrealized ridership projections from new bus services in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Houston and Ottawa.
No, said others, L.A.’s efforts, emulating Curitiba, Brazil, are among the new success, not failure stories. Buses deliver affordable and much quicker new service, not to mention flexibility when routes need to be shifted.
Take a look, one reader advised, at Adelaide, Australia, claimed to be using “regular street buses to provide the entire system at a fraction of the cost of light rail.”
No, said others, buses aren’t the bargain they appear. “Busways, to be grade-separated and effective, are bigger, more obtrusive, and probably as expensive as rail,” wrote a former federal transit chief. “Buses,” he added, “cost more to operate since you can carry fewer people per driver and they have a shorter useful life than rail cars.”
The irony for me is that I personally prefer rail. Though if there were ever a season to be open-minded, to search out least-cost alternatives, it’s now — especially as Bush budget deficits clamp down on federal subsidies for new systems.
Transit boosters better get together and decide on realistic, clear ways to assess and compare costs. Of course there’ll always be other valid issues, from aesthetics to safety to city image to quality of ride. But at least agree, guys, on likely costs, or the AAA crowd and asphalt hard-hats will keep on eating your lunch.