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[NE2]

Mass transit != public transit.  Buses are public transportation, but not mass transit.  Seattle's articulated buses seat only 56-64 passengers, with possibly a hundred standees crush-loaded uncomfortably.  This pales in comparison to any sort of light or heavy rail service.

Eh? Buses are certainly mass transit. Just with lower capacity.

[Tarkus]

Mass transit != public transit.  Buses are public transportation, but not mass transit.  Seattle's articulated buses seat only 56-64 passengers, with possibly a hundred standees crush-loaded uncomfortably.  This pales in comparison to any sort of light or heavy rail service.

Eh? Buses are certainly mass transit. Just with lower capacity.

And a few benefits light rail doesn't have:

-Ability to use existing road infrastructure (no rails to lay down/maintain).
-Flexibility in terms of routing.
-Vastly less expensive.
-Can serve a wider area.

If bus fleets were kept up-to-date and promoted properly, I think the "stigma" would be vastly diminished.  Agencies like Portland's TriMet have so many PR flacks on board extolling new light rail expansions and urban renewal scams . . . if they simply shifted their focus toward improving the image of their bus system, they wouldn't be on the verge of bankruptcy.  (It's worth noting they're still pursuing Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail and Barbur-99W MAX despite the fact that they've had to drastically cut existing service, eliminate Fareless Square/Free Rail Zone and jack up fares.)

[Kacie Jane]

Mass transit != public transit.  Buses are public transportation, but not mass transit.  Seattle's articulated buses seat only 56-64 passengers, with possibly a hundred standees crush-loaded uncomfortably.  This pales in comparison to any sort of light or heavy rail service.

Eh? Buses are certainly mass transit. Just with lower capacity.

I admit I could certainly be mistaken.  I'm looking at Google, Wikipedia, etc., and can't find consistent definitions for the terms "public transit", "mass transit", and "rapid transit".

It could be that I was thinking of the distinction between public/mass transit and rapid transit, but my understanding has always been that mass transit was transit that was capable of transporting "masses" from A to B.  Busloads are certainly larger than carloads, but still not masses in my eyes.

Semantics aside, I have nothing against buses, and Tarkus's four benefits are certainly true.  However, those aren't necessarily benefits in all situations.  For instance, if you have a massive number of commuters from Vancouver to Portland, you don't necessarily need the flexibility or wider area.  You can still use the buses as a feeder system to the light rail (or as someone else mentioned, Amtrak/commuter rail), then use the higher-capacity trains to transport the masses from one city to the other.  I agree that the costs are high, but at some point it does become more effective to eat the construction costs and put the masses on trains that can (a) hold more of them and (b) not sit in/add to traffic.

(And yes, the repeated use of the word "mass" in that paragraph was intentional.  Sorry )

[NE2]

I admit I could certainly be mistaken.  I'm looking at Google, Wikipedia, etc., and can't find consistent definitions for the terms "public transit", "mass transit", and "rapid transit".

I admit I probably never looked it up. But here's one reasonable source that conflates the terms: http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Pages/glossary.aspx#7 (except rapid transit - that's normally used for grade-separated rail).

[Kacie Jane]

I admit I could certainly be mistaken.  I'm looking at Google, Wikipedia, etc., and can't find consistent definitions for the terms "public transit", "mass transit", and "rapid transit".

I admit I probably never looked it up. But here's one reasonable source that conflates the terms: http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Pages/glossary.aspx#7 (except rapid transit - that's normally used for grade-separated rail).

It could just be that we're into another one of those grey areas of terms that are either undefined, improperly defined, or defined differently in different regions -- like traffic circle/roundabout/rotary or freeway/expressway.

What I meant to imply with what I first said regarding buses and "are they mass transit?" is that regardless of what you call it, buses are clearly on a separate level from light rail (and light rail is probably on a different level from fully grade-separated rail, although light rail is closer to full rapid transit than it is to buses).

[NE2]

What I meant to imply with what I first said regarding buses and "are they mass transit?" is that regardless of what you call it, buses are clearly on a separate level from light rail (and light rail is probably on a different level from fully grade-separated rail, although light rail is closer to full rapid transit than it is to buses).

On the other hand, light rail is the polished younger brother of streetcars, which were mostly replaced by buses. Philadelphia is a good example of light rail vehicles on street trackage.

[Kacie Jane]

I suppose it depends on how the light right is designed and used.  The majority of Seattle's new system (er, line) is off-street.  The downtown portion of Portland's is not.  Some are polished streetcars, some are merely a step below rapid transit.

Pardon me while I backtrack further. 

So is light rail the "missing link" between buses and rapid transit then?

[NE2]

Pardon me while I backtrack further. 

So is light rail the "missing link" between buses and rapid transit then?

Light rail is a marketing term, like roundabout (in the U.S.). There were fast streetcars long before the term "light rail".

Don't forget about bus rapid transit.

[Kacie Jane]

Which is a joke to me.  I don't see how BRT is any more "rapid" then a typical express bus, other than modified fare control.

Unless you meant that bus rapid transit is also a marketing term, which I totally agree with.

[nexus73]

USCG says the bridge is too low.  The FAA won't let it be any higher.  Here's the latest news from The Oregonian:

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/03/new_columbia_river_crossing_br.html

Talk about being boxed in by bureaucracy...LOL!

Rick

[bookem]

I don't see how BRT is any more "rapid" then a typical express bus, other than modified fare control.

I could be mistaken, but BRT is typically categorized as having its own right of way (think Eugene-Springfield).  Otherwise it's "rapid transit" that's only as rapid as the rest of the traffic sharing the road with it.

USCG says the bridge is too low.  The FAA won't let it be any higher.  Here's the latest news from The Oregonian:

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/03/new_columbia_river_crossing_br.html

Talk about being boxed in by bureaucracy...LOL!

Rick

As was astutely pointed out on a transit blog, $140 mil spent on planning so far and they never cleared the height with the Coast Guard??  I used to be gung-ho for a completely replacing the current bridges, mainly because I couldn't see the point of having a drawbridge on an Interstate span, but even before this latest announcement it became painfully clear to me that other options are needed.

[Bickendan]

Hilarious.

Maybe in the meantime when this gets put on hold, they'll address the I-5 loop bottlenecks.
Oh right. Wishful thinking.

[Tarkus]

Hopefully this will kill the project.   To say that this thing is a boondoggle is a gross understatement.  It's over $200 million just in planning now. 

[Kacie Jane]

I don't see how BRT is any more "rapid" then a typical express bus, other than modified fare control.

I could be mistaken, but BRT is typically categorized as having its own right of way (think Eugene-Springfield).  Otherwise it's "rapid transit" that's only as rapid as the rest of the traffic sharing the road with it.

I could be mistaken, but I wouldn't call a bus-only lane adjacent to general purpose lanes "its own right of way", particularly if it's not physically separated in any way (and particularly if it periodically turns into a shared turn lane, as E-S does).  It certainly allows buses to travel faster than they normally would, but not to a terribly significant degree.  (If traffic is congested in the general purpose lanes, it's not terribly safe for buses to go barreling by in their lane at the speed limit -- again, particularly if turning GP traffic is a concern.)

From what I've seen on the systems I'm most familiar with (Seattle, Everett, and NYC, all fairly new), they all have bus-only lanes for at least some portion (the Seattle line actually mostly uses regular HOV lanes) but certainly not for 100% of the route.  Also, the existence of bus only lanes does not automatically make a line BRT.

I should take back what I said about BRT being a joke -- it is a joke to categorize it as "rapid transit" the way a subway/metro is, but it certainly is a step up from typical local buses.  But they're still just glorified express buses.

As a slight aside, the one place I've seen (in person) buses on a genuine separate right-of-way is in downtown (and SODO) Seattle.  It's always only been used for "regular" buses (except for the portion that's now been converted to share with the light rail), and all the plans I've seen for the future BRT lines call for them to use the surface streets downtown, not the tunnel/busway.

[sp_redelectric]

Which is a joke to me.  I don't see how BRT is any more "rapid" then a typical express bus, other than modified fare control.

BRT usually has (some or all of) the following characteristics that make it faster (more rapid) than conventional buses:

1.  Fewer stops, the bus stops themselves are usually more developed and appear like a "streetcar" or "light rail" stop.  Always located with plenty of access to all bus doors.  Stops are usually a half mile to a mile apart; stops on conventional bus routes can be as little as 500 feet (about 1-2 city blocks) apart.

2.  Off-board ticketing.  You buy your ticket at a vending machine at the bus stop platform.  No queue lined out the front door of the bus waiting to get on before the bus can scoot down the road.

3.  Multiple entrance/exits.  Since you don't need to buy a fare from the Operator, you can use any door to get on and off the bus.  No more waiting to get on, no more pushing your way to get to the back of the bus to get off.

4.  ITS upgrades - traffic signal preemption, queue jumper lanes, and so on.  More green lights.

5.  Partial or entire lane separation.  This can either be a dedicated bus lane, a separate right-of-way (a bus way), a shared HOV lane, or a shared lane used by other than through traffic.  This is an area where BRT has quite a range of flexibility in, depending on the needs of the community.  Not every BRT project needs a full busway.  Yet BRT opponents seem to feel that BRT is only good IF it has a busway (and thus then further derides it because then the busway costs more money.)

The key is to find the right tool for the job.  BRT makes sense in a lot of areas, but it doesn't always make sense.  In Los Angeles, they built a BRT line (the orange line) only for it to be jam-packed.  Should have built heavy rail, BRT was too little.  But BRT would be a huge improvement throughout Portland to replace routes like the 57 route on TV Highway, the 12 route on Barbur/99W and the 33 route on McLoughlin/99E and the 9 route on Powell/US 26 (east).  Much cheaper than rail, provides almost all of the benefits of rail at about 1/5th the cost.

[Bickendan]

Point of fact: Line 57 used to have an express line from Portland to Forest Grove (line 91 TV Hwy Express), back when the 57 ran from Portland to Forest Grove. When the Blue Line was extended west, the West Side lines were dramatically changed.

57 TV Hwy (Portland - Forest Grove local service) -> 57 TV Hwy (Beaverton - Forest Grove local service)
58 Sunset Express (Portland - Hillsboro via US 26 and Shute Road, rush hour) -> 58 Canyon Rd (Beaverton - Portland local service)
59 Park Way (Portland - Beaverton local service) -> 59 Walker/Park Way (Willow Creek - Sunset TC rush hour service) (functions as 94 Walker Road Express, see below)
62 Murray Blvd (Portland - Washington Square via US 26, Murray, Scholls Ferry) -> 62 Murray Blvd (Sunset TC - Washington Square via Murray, Beaverton TC, Murray, Scholls Ferry)
63 Washington Park - OMSI (Sylvan - Rose Quarter via Canyon Ct, Zoo/Forestry Center, Fairmount Blvd, Salmon, Hawthorne Bridge, OMSI, MLK/Grand Ave, Lloyd Blvd) -> Washington Park (Sylvan - Kings Hill via Canyon Ct, Zoo/Forestry Center, Fairmont, Salmon)
88 SW 198th (Portland - Aloha) -> 88 Hart/198th (Willow Creek - Beaverton)
89 Union Mills (Portland - north of Tanasbourne) -> 89 Tanasbourne (Sunset TC - Tanasbourne)
91 TV Hwy Express (Portland - Forest Grove express service) -> Deleted
94 Walker Road Express (Portland - Tanasbourne via US 26, Canyon, Walker) -> 94 Pacific Hwy Express (Portland - Sherwood via OR 99W); Walker Rd service absorbed by realigned line 59.
95 Tigard/I-5 Express (Portland [Lloyd Center] - Sherwood via I-5, OR 99W) -> Absorbed by 94 Pacific Hwy Express
98 PCC Sylvania Express (Portland - PCC Sylvania contra-flow express via I-5, Capitol Hwy) -> Deleted; absorbed by PCC's all day free bus service

As for line 12 Barbur, it has its dedicated express line, the 94, originally the 95. After the 94 Walker Rd was discontinued, it was paired with the 95, giving the 12 TWO express lines until the 94 absorbed the 95.

Line 33 has line 99 McGlouglin Express as its rush hour express service, plus lines 31 King Rd/Estacada and 32 Oatfield providing rush hour relief local* service between Portland and Milwaukie. *As much 'local' service as you can get on OR 99E north of Milwaukie...

Line 9 Powell is an odd situation. Between OR 99W and SE 39th Ave, it has line 66 Hollywood-Marquam Express. Beyond that, it's on its own, making the 66 more of a express line for line 75 Chavez/Lombard... which used to have two express lines on SE 39th Ave, running in opposite directions (66 Hollywood - Marquam Hill, 74 SE Portland, Rose Quarter - Woodstock).

Line 9 should have a dedicated express line, but not past I-205. However, the express should continue to Gresham, along Division with line 4.