2014-04-24 webinar by Fred Salvucci

1. The Flexibility of the Bus is Both a
Strength and a Weakness in
Providing Access to Opportunity in
Metropolitan Areas
Does BRT Help or Hurt?
Fred Salvucci
MIT
ALC-BRT Webinar
April 24, 2014
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2. Access to opportunity in metropolitan areas is a
major motivation for improving public transport
– Transportation
– Land Use
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3. Omnibus
The derivation of the word “bus” is from the
Latin “omnibus” – for everyone
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http://goldenagepaintings.blogspot.com/2011/01/london-omnibus.html

4. Omnibus
Earliest public transportation mode was the horse-
drawn cart, selling rides to anyone who pays
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5. Omnibus
Selling individual rides changed to selling an
increasingly integrated service:
• Inventing the concept of separation of
residence from workplace
• As a means to support city growth
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6. Horse Cart
Horse cart placed on rails
• Expanded capacity and productivity
• Forced stronger need for public permission to
build tracks in the street, and regulation
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7. Streetcar
Electrification further strengthened:
• Economies of scale
• Service networks
• Interaction with land use intensification
• Increased “accessibility” or connectivity
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8. Beneficiary Payment
• Users
• Land Developers
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9. Subway
• In many cities, intensification of use led to development of
subways
– To reduce excessive conflict on the street
– To improve the quality and capacity of service
– Further supporting intensification of land use
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http://cache.boston.com/multimedia/2011/01/bos_then_now/tremont_recut.jpg

10. Omnibus No Longer Serves All
Growth in availability of the automobile in the
1920s, and public policy encouraging auto-
oriented, lower density residential use:
• Weakened the viability of higher capital
streetcar systems
• Led to greater need for “subsidy”, or face loss
of service in lower density markets
• Led to greater use of buses, with more
flexibility to serve lower density markets
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11. Flexibility
Greater flexibility of the bus also led to weakness in stability
of service
• Weaker economy of scale of production provides greater
flexibility to reduce frequency, and/or eliminate entire lines
• Economy of scale of the consumer becomes collateral
damage as reduced frequency and density of service
network makes public transportation unfeasible as a
primary mode for more of the metropolitan area and
population
• Without the stability inherent in the inflexibility of electric
rail services, transit oriented development becomes less
viable for most of the metropolitan area, relegated to niche
market status
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12. Omnibus No Longer Serves All
Inadequate understanding of the need for
subsidy led to:
• Weakened service
• Growth of unserved land use
• Weakening of potential political will, as non
user beneficiaries decline
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13. Austerity Stresses Political Will
Fiscal austerity makes the maintenance of public
transportation subsidy to serve the entire
metropolitan area more politically difficult as
• Transit riders become a political minority
• With reduced political power
• Exacerbated by low income of many transit
dependent families
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14. Inherent Growth in Need for Transit “Subsidy”
Labor costs rise faster than the average rate of inflation,
as income of most transit riders grows at less than the
rate of inflation
Leads to requiring increased level of subsidy over time
for the same level of service (Baumol Effect – Baumol
and Bowen, 1966)
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15. Inadequate Service
Today, most metro areas are substantially underserved
by public transportation; if the objective is to provide
accessibility without the financial and environmental
costs of the automobile for most households
• Mature slow growing metro areas
– Auto is dominant mode, dominating legacy transit systems
(if the legacy system even survived)
• Rapidly urbanizing metro areas
– Lack legacy transit systems and often have non-integrated
weak services, provided without subsidy through local
monopoly providers
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16. Promise of BRT
In both of these dominant circumstances, BRT
offers great promise to provide significantly
improved public transportation services
• To substantial proportions of the metropolitan
area
• More quickly than would be financially or
politically feasible with primarily rail service
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17. BRT is Often Oversold
More traditional bus services, and modestly improved bus services, continue to be
essential in corridors with narrow street widths, and modest existing land use
densities. These are usually essential to any goal of offering access to the entire
metropolitan area, and should not be designated as “BRT Lite” or “Not True BRT”
Frequent stops and fine-grained network of traditional bus service are the best hope
for providing service to most of the metropolitan area and should not be denigrated
for not being BRT, nor for not being rail.
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18. The flexibility of the traditional bus to serve
much of the metro area needs to be celebrated
and protected as a precondition of success for
both rail and BRT, not viewed as a source of
subsidy to redirect or divert.
Both rail and BRT should be net incremental
services, not substitutes for buses which
connect the last half mile
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19. It should be recognized that BRT does not
convey the “inflexible” commitment that rail
investments convey, and are unlikely to
stimulate the level of confidence to lead to high
density transit oriented development.
True success for many BRT investments will be
proven when they are replaced by higher
capacity, “inflexible” rail services
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20. “Saving” money by substituting “flexible” BRT service for
an “inflexible,” more expensive rail investment is a
weakening of commitment to transit.
On the other hand, providing BRT in three or four
corridors instead of rail in one corridor is a significant
improvement.
Context is important, and unless the “saved” money goes
to transit, it is likely going to sprawl-inducing road
investment, not a victory for public transit.
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21. The urban design aspects of BRT are often undesirable, and in
many cases unacceptable
• High speed
• Long distance between stops
• Long vehicles
• Off-board fare collection
Very limited locations in real cities
“Normal bus” with more frequency and/or better bus, but not
full BRT, are often he most politically feasible and right choices.
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22. Political Will
Cities people will love, which rely less upon the auto
• Urban design
• Accessibility for all
BRT can help or hurt
• Boston – Silver Lie or Silver Lining
• Houston – Promise rail, deliver bus; damage political will
• Los Angeles – Expand rail at expense of bus
• Seattle – BRT to rail failure, rail extremism
• Chicago BRT expansion celebrated while essential rail rapid transit decays
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23. Omnibus and Political Will
• Rail is popular, necessary for capacity
• Bus is essential
• BRT is strategically useful to expand service,
but often should eventually e replaced by rail
to deliver capacity and stability to support
transit oriented development
• Political will is strongest if the entire area and
population can be served.
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