I have seen this claim made many times and accomplished seldom or never. The BRT which is inexpensive is not the BRT which is good. Roadways are not cheap, and

I have seen this claim made many times and accomplished seldom or never. The BRT which is inexpensive is not the BRT which is good. Roadways are not cheap, and if you actually spent the money and political capital it would take to develop new, dedicated, grade-separated smooth concrete roadways for your BRT system, it would cost so much that you might as well just build a train - people will like it more, they'll use it more, you can expand it later by hitching cars together, and your long term maintenance costs will be far, far lower. I believe that BRT is popular among people making transit proposals because they are thinking about it as designers, not as users; they don't care that it is a bus, so they don't understand why other people do. All they see is a politically expedient way to draw some lines on a map. Ask people who use transit, though, and very few of them will be impressed if you try to sell them a bus when what they want is a train.