They're setting up a BRT in Cleveland called the Euclid Corridor project. A nice idea, a 7 mile route down the city's main drag, hooking up the city's public square to university circle.

The project is on, like, its 5th year. It "may" go online in a month or two. It has been hell. Business shut down, construction delays and just ungodly awful to look at.

I'm sure you are just transcribing what they said from the meeting, but the feature of either that could be considered major is the flexibility of BRT, with route changes/additions executed in one year, rather than ten. That alone can sink or save a municipality from rolling out better service.

Sexiness is such a minor factor, and certainly not exclusive to Light Rail. The BRT in the San Fernando Valley is downright gorgeous. Besides, $5.00 a gallon gas isn't going to take much convincing.

The timing of this article is interesting because similar debates are happening in my city, Vancouver, Canada. The provincial government just announced huge funding for a bunch of projects but we're pretty skeptical about the whole thing even happening. Moreover, people in the suburban area that is growing and densifying rapidly haven't been offered a good solution, so a group of around 1,000 people are rallying for a rail solution (light or heavy rail). There are plans for several rapid bus lines around Metro Vancouver but we don't think it'll cut it. The points about a sexier image and above-ground benefits are key here since ridership is a dismal 10%. Yikes. A speaker from Curitiba was here but his ideas obviously haven't taken root with our politicians!

A SkyTrain line built with cut-and-cover has essentially ruined a main business district (street) with many businesses suffering, relocating, or shutting down. Apparently campaigns to get people to continue shopping up there hasn't really worked. Traffic has been a nightmare and there are still cavernous holes everywhere.

Light Rail systems are usually difficult to implement and build in an existing downtown. When they tried to put a new LTR system in Houton they ran several years and many many millions over budget. It's a great system, but works a lot better if the city planners can build in advance of growth.

The distinction between BRT and LRT based on the fact that the first would be more appropriate for developing countries and the second more appropriate for developed ones is a very unfortunate simplification of the problem.

The real key factors depend on the urban characteristics of each city ie. its urban structure, land uses and production systems, road structures, population and travelling patterns, geographic contraints, etc.

Several latin american cities have subway systems but subway lines cannot grow and adapt as fast as the cities themselves. Light rail trains work better in dense urban centers covering short distances. They are not flexible enough to cover all the suburban areas. That is why Curitiba developed its BRT system: because they needed a highly flexible system for integrating all their growing peripheral areas quickly and efficiently.

There is no magic answer for what type of system is better. It depends on each context, requiring a lot of research and planning with a strong involvement of citizens. I hope they can get that in Tel Aviv.

Jesse,

Great piece until you try to define Bus Rapid Transit. I don't want to sound too critical, but you've really oversimplified LRT and BRT. Granted, they are terms that even transportation planners can't always define, so I won't even try.

Some say Light Rail refers to the actual weight of the vehicles, others say it is the infrastructure necessary to make them work.

The practical differences are the type of "road" the vehicles need, is it easier/cheaper to build roads and use rubber tires or tracks and steel wheels? Either system can use any kind of propulsion, streetcars on rails embedded in the roads of San Fran use electricity and The River Line in New Jersey has dual mode diesel / electric catenary light rail cars.

BRT isn't necessary an elongated bus, the R is for Rapid, which usually refers to an exclusive right of way outside of normal traffic.

Also, buses need a driver in more cases than a light rail vehicle needs an engineer - but both types of vehicles can work with or without on board human supervision.

In the end, it is all about what works better for the particular situation. In a system that will use public ROWs and may change routes, buses allow for that flexibility. There isn't any snow in Israel (is there?) so rail isn't necessarily more weather resistant.

A decision could come down to the fact that City X already has a fleet of buses, a contract for tires, a factory for construction, and a number of trained mechanics on staff.

If you have any influence, tell them to plan the routes and then choose the proper vehicles - and to ask the people what they want in an open and public forum. But that is just one planning students views.

I hope to read more about this issue on TH btw, mass transit isn't quite walking, but it certainly beats driving!

Hey that light-rail looks just like the one from Houston!

There have been light-rail issues in Houston. Lots of neighborhoods Metro wants to go through strongly oppose light-rail construction, claiming it will hurt business, residences, and all that. Because of that, it's taking a long time to find where to put the lines.

And driving right next to light-rail trains have also been a problem. Namely doing left-turns.

And like Houston Realtor said, there's been budget overruns.

Plus, there was news of stray electric currents from the tracks are breaking apart foundations of important buildings. Well not really strong damage or noticeable ones, but more so decades later damages will appear. I don't understand that much, but it's making foundations unstable.

Plus, I don't think large-scale public transport works well at all in Houston. The city's too far spread out, and less densely populated. The Metro doesn't seem to be serving people like me far away from the inner city. A lot of Houstonians live in the suburbs, and don't go downtown much.

But otherwise than that, it's all right. The trains really do look nice and sleek. The stations seem much more nicer and creative looking than the usual bus stops. If Metro just speeds up construction faster and maybe work with TxDOT to somehow go along freeways to spread out service better, I could see it working.

So light-rail can be good.

Not too sure about BRT. It also seems ok to me.

Though in cities with soaring temperatures, going underground (subways) would seem better.

Here in Phoenix, AZ, USA we are spending $1.4 billion on a light rail system that will only run 20 fixed, linear miles. Unfortunately, we are a giant spread-out metropolis of 9,000 square miles!

That same $1.4 B would have bought almost 5,000 buses. Needless to say, only a teensy weensy portion of our 4 million people will benefit from this $1.4 B spent on 20 measly miles.

My home town in Colorado had a big empty swath running right through the middle of it for 15 years before it was eventually filled with the highway that was planned for it. so it is possible to plan that far in advance.

With that kind of planning it should be possible to build for the future light rail, while using a BRT. the BRT buses could be moved outward like the layers of sprawl in dertroit. Routes could almost run as prototypes for lightrail lines as density grows in those areas. and then as the density is high enough you build the lightrail tracks in and move the BRT out again.

but... that kind of planning is hard to find and ridiculously rare.

The new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project in Cleveland has a lot of hidden benefits. Namely a lot of infrastructure under the street was 100+ years old and badly in need of repair. Cleveland is going beyond what is needed for BRT. All of the utilities are being replaced (and upgraded), and the street is being completely replaced, sidewalks included. The city, state, and federal government are sharing just the cost of the roadbed itself. Despite some apparent cost overruns for some sewer lines, the city is saving a ton of money doing it this way. And hopefully we won't have any water main ruptures that require the road to be dug up again in the next 20+ years.

With luck the new route will spur a lot of redevelopment. During construction, however, it is killing a lot of businesses in the construction zones. Project completion is currently "late 2008" so it will be many years before we know how successful the project is.

When the project began, the federal government provided a partial subsidy for new road projects (including BRT), but not mass transit rail. So Cleveland really had no option to build light rail instead of BRT.

In my experience, rail is much cheaper to maintain and operate, but much more expensive to build. BRT is relatively quick (unless you are replacing all of the utilities and completely rebuilding the roadbed), but maintenance and operating costs are higher. Perhaps it is different in regions that don't have Cleveland's weather.

Finally, I would argue that route flexibility is not always a good thing. While a bus line can be rerouted relatively easily, that same flexibility can limit development along the route. The guy who wants to rehab a vacant building to put in a coffee shop near a transit stop, for example, will have an easier time convincing a lender that that is a worthwhile investment if the transit stop is certain to be there during the life of the loan.

The light rail in Houston is also known as the wham bam tram because of cars occasionally colliding with it. I heard they even have a wam bam tram cam to watch it all.

I like the flexibility of BRT, but I also like the rails on light rail... After all, rails = less friction = more energy efficient transport. And if they'd be going for electric light rails, that offers extra possibilities of using green power for the beast.
But perhaps the two aren't mutually exclusive? Wouldn't it make sense to use BRT while the rail infrastructure is being built? And once it's there, the buses can be used elsewhere?

Flexibility is a Bad Thing. It reduces the certainty of availability that is required for widespread adoption of a transportation method, reduces the adjacent land value increase (and reduces infill development). BRT is a really bad idea for developed countries - asphalt has to be replaced more often than tracks, the ride isn't as smooth (duh), and it uses gas or diesel. Electric rail means you can benefit from wind/solar/hydro, or even just the efficiency of a larger coal/oil plant (higher than an engine).

Buses are really a stopgap measure - they're often the only choice for developing countries, where any transit is desperately needed and money is scarce, but in places like the US, where politics plays such a role, having buses you can just get rid of after the next election isn't a great idea.

All large projects tend to have overruns and come in late - that isn't a difference between LRT and buses, it's just a difference in capital outlay and the complexities that come with it.

Why not grade-separate it and put the train up on a monorail beam? You'd have the same energy efficiency gains over autos, you'd have very little visual intrusion, you'd have no speed losses to traffic congestion, and you'd be able to construct the system faster than tearing up the road to put in Light Rail tracks.

Not to mention, business are often forced to close when the road is torn up during light rail construction because their customers can't get to them.

And when the light rail system is installed, the collisions between cars and the trains usually kill the drivers.

BRT which mixes with traffic is slower than traffic because buses have to stop at every stop and can go no faster than the surrounding traffic.

http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/MonoVs.html

@ Bill: You have BRT wrong. BRT by definition and in every execution so far has a dedicated lane with no traffic and fewer stops. It doesn't mix with traffic at all.

This was only slightly touched on in the comments, but is a large issue that should be considered when debating the two methods of mass transit. Because of it's in-flexibility, Light Rail systems can help maintain and regulate urban planning, due to fixed routes and cost to implement new routes, thus cutting back on the devastating sprawl that can occur with the flexibility of the BRT routes.

The problem with elevated monorails is cost.

We have light rail, and it goes underground for parts, and is elevated to cross major roadways, but their are many secondary streets it crosses at street levels, and is at ground level for most of the line.

Of course, every so often an idiot goes around the barricade at street level and realizes that even light rail overpowers a car pretty quick.

I've wondered at one point if the cost saved to not elevate it is being wasted on lawsuits by idiots who are at fault.

elevated monorails would be good, but no budgets are unlimited.

I wish we had a London Tube type system though!

devastating sprawl that can occur with the flexibility of the BRT routes? Well, no more than the sprawl produced by cars, that is for sure.

=v= I can't believe it took until the 12th comment for somebody to mention energy efficiency. That's the aspect, after all, with the "treehuggingest" attributes.

BRT is less money up front, but only because the accounting for the costs of roads goes into another ledger. Roads have a higher ecological impact than rails, and cost more to maintain. Lower efficiency also means more fuel costs, more pollution, and more maintenance.