3 ms·

BRT is mostly "you get what you pay for" - cheaper at a cost of lower capacity. Given relatively low density of US cities - that might be the right tool tho.

• rsynnott 6mo ago
  One thing you have to be careful about with things like this is induced demand. In Dublin in the early 90s, there was a debate about what to do with the right of way of an old commuter rail line, which had been closed in the 60s when closing rail lines was fashionable. Irish Rail wanted to reinstate the commuter rail line, Dublin Bus wanted to build a BRT system. In the early noughties, the transport authority split the difference and put in a tram system (green line Luas). A BRT system would have had a capacity of, very optimistically, 6,000 people per hour per direction (a 100 person bus arriving every minute), but in practice probably less (that is difficult to maintain without delays). At the time, there was some doubt that even this capacity was required. The original tram setup also had a capacity of about 6,000 people per hour. Within years, the trams were full to overcrowding, and the line was expanded to 10,000 people per hour. Now it's at capacity again, with some of the longest trams in the world arriving every three minutes at peak. The only realistic option to further increase capacity is to turn it into a metro line (which, fortunately, was in principle planned for from the start, and _is_ possible, albeit with some disruption). If they'd gone with a BRT, they'd now be looking at ripping up the whole thing and having nothing for years while they laid tracks.