I wouldn't dismiss the busway just on the ground that it is a temporary solution.
Besides making the riders happier, it can save on the bus operating costs. Faster trips means fewer buses and fewer bus drivers are needed to provide the same level of service, without any loss in capacity or frequency.
The proponents claim the bus way will save 10 min each way. Maybe that's overestimated in comparison with dedicated on-street bus lanes. Let's assume that the saving is just 5 min each way, i.e. 10 min for the round trip.
Let's assume our bus route one-way trip takes 35 min without the busway; that's a 70 min roundtrip. To maintain a 3-min frequency, one needs 24 buses on the route.
Cut the roundtrip to 60 min, and now we only need 20 buses. And this is not a service cut, as we still maintain the same 3-min frequency, and the same capacity (20 bus trips per hour per direction, times the capacity of one bus). This is a true efficiency.
It is worth calculating the combined cost of saving on multiple bus routes between STC and Kennedy, and compare that sum to the cost of busway. Quite possibly, the saving will outweight the construction cost.
