Lessons from a South American Bus Rapid Transit system

[M II A II R II K]

Lessons from a South American Bus Rapid Transit system


February 26, 2010

by George Leventhal

Read More: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=5001

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Curitiba, a city of 1.8 million people, is the capital of the state of Paraná in Brazil. In late December, I visited Curitiba at my own expense and was briefed on its Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, one of the world's first and most highly-regarded. Because Montgomery County is studying BRT as an option for its residents, I wanted to find out how it is working in other communities. I found many positive aspects and some less positive.

- Curitiba's system is respected around the world and has inspired other BRT systems in Latin American cities including Bogota, Mexico City and Guatemala City, as well as U.S. cities including Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles.

- The genius of the city's plan is that on primary streets, the center two lanes of traffic have been reserved for buses. This enables the buses to avoid automobile traffic and move smoothly, with minimal interruption. "Tube" stations are placed every 500 meters along primary routes. A city law states that no resident may live more than 500 meters from a bus stop, so the primary and collector routes cover the entire residential area.

- On the main bus line, the 351 tube stations are sleek and modern. Passengers pay when they enter the station, avoiding a delay when entering the bus. The buses are long, with several doors allowing passengers to enter and the bus doors correspond with several doors at each station, enabling speedy entrance to and egress from the buses. Buses on primary express routes are "bi-articulated," containing three cars with accordion-style dividers that enable them to navigate tight turns quickly and efficiently.

- Property values adjacent to the bus line have shown consistent increases when new express routes are constructed, increasing tax revenues to local governments. Buses utilize 20% Biodiesel to minimize emissions of carbon and other pollutants.

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[Darwinkgo]

Lesson: Bus Rapid Transit is a great alternative when your biggest input cost is not labour.

 

[M II A II R II K]

But if this were put on Sheppard East instead then it would seem like a less of a waste to have to pave over the tracks if they extend the subway.

And what of the proposals for the Mississauga Eglinton BRT and Ottawa's Transitway...

 

[Darwinkgo]

Ottawa's central transitway is being replaced by LRT which will save the city 10s of millions in operating costs every year.

 

[afransen]

I'd have to say those artics probably don't need much more labour per passenger than LRT.

 

[doady]

Not just artics, but bi-artics as well...

But if vehicle size was all that mattered then 19 Hurontario wouldn't be more profitable than 501 Queen...

 

[Darwinkgo]

I'd have to say those artics probably don't need much more labour per passenger than LRT.

You have to break free of your Toronto thinking of LRT, to multiple units. In Edmonton and Calgary and soon to be Ottawa LRT operates much more like HRT than anything else Toronto has.

 

[ShonTron]

I'd have to say those artics probably don't need much more labour per passenger than LRT.

I was just on TransMilenio, the second Latin American BRT success story. The quick loading and unloading of passengers (and heavy crowds) make the system incredibly efficient by almost any measure. Especially when you remember that the main method of public transportation south of the Rio Grande are small 20-seater minibuses operating often in competition to each other. Mexico's Metrobus, the third Latin American BRT success story, pulled hundreds of old polluting minibuses off Avenue Insurgentes, replacing them with modern artics. And that was a city already with an extensive Metro system.

 

[afransen]

I have a lot of faith in a reasonably designed BRT system, which honestly makes much of Transit City look like madness. BRT seems like a decent intermediary before subways are put in, and it can be done at lower cost.

 

[kEiThZ]

Ottawa's central transitway is being replaced by LRT which will save the city 10s of millions in operating costs every year.

The rationale behind the LRT conversion has nothing to do with cost (that's a secondary benefit) and everything to do with capacity in the core. Stand on the Transitway during rush hour and you'll see bunching like you can't even imagine in a Toronto nightmare. The LRT conversion is their version of building the DRL. They aren't building it because it's fashionable. They are building it because they need the capacity. The same can't necessarily be said about transit developments in Toronto. If cared about necessity, the DRL would come before any Transit City line.

 

[kEiThZ]

I have a lot of faith in a reasonably designed BRT system, which honestly makes much of Transit City look like madness. BRT seems like a decent intermediary before subways are put in, and it can be done at lower cost.

Not to mention that it can be executed with far more flexibility and redundancy too.

 

[Fresh Start]

I am overwhelmed with joy to hear that other forumers are at least in tacit support of Bus Rapid Transit. How things got so far off in the wrong direction with the TTC's line of thinking I don't know. It's in their own statistics, buses carry the lion's share of commuters in and around the city, over one-quarter moreso than even the subway system, and accounts for over 80% of the subway's daily patronage.

"The average daily ridership exceeds 2.45 million passengers: 1,232,300 through bus, 276,000 by streetcar, 35,600 by intermediate rail (RT), and 906,800 by subway." SOURCE: http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/Ridership/2009_q3_ridership_APTA.pdf

So how then is something of modal worth to only about one-tenth of the total population of Toronto being mass-produced on a grand-scale for the same pricetag equivalent as 50 kiometres of new metro subways but yet will only cover <15% of the total land area? Huh? Something is just not right with that picture.

At least if say $3 billion was spent on building a high-quality BRT system akin to the Ottawa Transitway, spanning suburbia with complimentary subway extensions built out to intercept them; then we could truly claim to be helping out all communities via the introduction of mass transit to every ward. Misconceptions abound about what is and what isn't mass transit. To me, having to transfer from a bus to a streetcar to get to the subway when the bus is just as capable as getting me there rapidly is not true mass transit. It's more like mass hysteria from long wait-times for one's connecting service. The people of Toronto deserve better and I'm so sorry that we're being given this windfall of money from the Feds, this unlikely opportunity for creative and forward-thinking mindsets to come forward and build sustainable transit solutions, yet we choose to squander it so wastefully. You don't have to be Notredamus to see where Transit City is leading this city to. We need only look at what impact the social, economic and financial ramifications the 501 and 512 services have had on corridors, businesses and individuals to second-guess its practical worth vs. implementing a network of dedicated bus lanes along Avenues right across the city.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Fresh Start, look at this post for some answers to your questions, as rhetorical as they may be

The rationale behind the LRT conversion has nothing to do with cost (that's a secondary benefit) and everything to do with capacity in the core. Stand on the Transitway during rush hour and you'll see bunching like you can't even imagine in a Toronto nightmare. The LRT conversion is their version of building the DRL. They aren't building it because it's fashionable. They are building it because they need the capacity. The same can't necessarily be said about transit developments in Toronto. If cared about necessity, the DRL would come before any Transit City line.

Yet Ottawa did it's BRT a little differently than Curitiba (the two biggest BRT success stories.)
What Curitiba has is a network of medium-capacity, 25 km/h BRTs all over the city. Honestly, they're everywhere. And through the core, they don't merge together into one mega-BRT. They all remain separate on their own routes.
Ottawa uses it's transitway much more like a real RT, like a subway, and all of it's routes end up piling onto one line during rush hour, moving at real RT-like speeds. This is really comparable to how the YUS gets it's 600k ppd ridership.
So there's a radically big difference between the two. In Ottawa's case, there was inevitably going to be a time when the system had to be upgraded due to the massive congestion in the core. In that sense, it'd be directly comparable to Toronto's DRL needs. But in Curitiba's case, the system is ripe to be expanded even further, just requiring another BRT trunk line along one of the city's main streets, taking another route downtown. It greatly increases the capacity and reach of the system, and so they now have more RT coverage than the GTA would get if all the MO2020 projects got completed (comparatively by size.)

But Toronto's at the point of no return for a Curitiba-style BRT network. We've already built higher order transit through the core, and so a BRT would be redundant, just funneling people onto the B-D or YUS instead of whisking them downtown. Only another real RT line would be able to compete (which is why we're building the DRL.) And just Toronto's geography is working against it. Curitiba is a city of about 3.6 million which sprawl out in all directions. Toronto's 5.5 million all sprawl on one half of a circle, due to the lake being in the way. This basically doubles the average travel time, and also makes it so the system has to handle a massive stacking on of new passengers as it approaches the core. In that sense, the bigger speed and vastly bigger capacity are needed. A BRT network never would have and never will work with Toronto, so BRT's left to use in suburban transitways and as European-style LRT routes.