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Buses World News
Buses World News
In brief: Worldwide montly news & informations about Buses, Busmakers, Passengers' and the Transport Industry
18.8.14
PASSENGERS TRANSPORT * USA: RAPID BUSES vs. LIGHT RAIL
* Oregon - Why rapid-buses are preferable to rail transit
(Photo: Richmond Hill Centre Terminal is a York Region Transit and Viva terminal) Oak Grove,ORE,USA -Transportation Policy Center, by jlongo -August 12, 2014:-- Transit agencies from Baltimore toSan Diegoand from Seattleto St. Petersburg are planning new light-rail lines. Yet light-rail is not only vastly more expensive than buses, it is slower, less comfortable, less convenient and has lower capacities than a well-designed rapid-bus system... Being expensive to build, light-rail can only reach parts of a region and thus most people have to drive to a park-and-ride station or transfer from a bus to train and back, thus lengthening the time of their trip.By comparison, for less money, rapid buses, which often rely on dedicated bus lanes to bypass traffic, can reach every corner of an urban area... And while it would appear that light rail can transport more people per day, the opposite is true...A single light-rail car can hold about 150 people, and in most cities three can be strung together in a train holding 450. By comparison, the biggest buses hold only a few more than 100 people.For safety reasons, however, most light-rail lines can support only about 20 trains an hour in each direction, while city streets can serve more than 160 buses per hour, giving the buses a huge capacity advantage. Where an expensive light-rail line can move about 9,000 people per hour, an inexpensive bus route can move nearly twice that many on city streets and many times more on a freeway lane...Transit agencies that want to build-light rail are wasting their taxpayers’ money. Cities that haven’t yet built light-rail should plan rapid-buses instead. Cities that have light rail should expand their systems with rapid buses and plan to replace the rail lines when they wear out with more efficient buses...
* Montana - Missoula buses will be 'zero fare' beginning Jan. 5
(Photo: Mountain Line riders check the route map at the downtown transfer center in August 2013) Missoula,MONT,USA -The Missoulian, by Kim Briggeman -August 12, 2014:-- The Mountain Line bus systemwill operate on a zero-fare basis starting Jan. 5.The arrangement is made possible with support from the city of Missoula, the University of Montanaand a variety of public and private entities... The goal is to increase ridership by 45 percent – 400,000 annual riderships, said Eric Hines, who chairs the MUTD board. That works out to nearly 1,100 more rides a day, all of them free...The partners will pony up $460,000 a year in order to eliminate the fares. UM andthe city have the lion’s share of the financial commitments – roughly $205,000 and $100,000, respectively...Missoulabecomes one of only about 40 cities and metropolitan areas to offer free public transportation...
Lake Wales,Lakeland,FL,USA -The Ledger, by CHARLES TANNER -February 23, 2011: ... Create jobs, build express lanes where the tracks were to be laid. Express buses, built in the U.S.A., would travel this route with natural gas engines. The stations could be much smaller, cheaper to build, with many convenient locations. The express lanes would be privately operated toll roads, accommodating privately operated buses and cars. This would leave the taxpayer off the hook for ever having to support this system...Think of the flexibility this idea would have. An express bus could travel directly from Tampa International Airport to Disney or directly to any of the other theme parks. A visitor would leave his flight at Tampa and not have to hire a taxi to take him to the train station. He would go directly to his destination without having to find a ride after arriving at the station. A bus able to travel 70 mph could travel between Tampa and Orlando in a little over an hour... The financing would be accomplished by companies bidding for the right to franchise this project. I am sure many of the theme parks would combine and take part in the project... The benefits of this idea is Florida jobs, less carbon dioxide emissions and flexibility. Florida workers would build the express lanes and stations. The buses could be built in the U.S. rather than in a foreign country... The power plants that would have had to supply electricity for the trains would use less coal or oil not having to support 150-mph trains... (Photo from en.wikipedia: Double articulated bus in Hamburg)
* UK - Green group attacks high-speed rail plans
London,EN,UK -FT (UK), by Robert Wright -February 28 2011: -- Environmental campaigners have urged the government to improve the UK’s existing rail network before it builds a new high-speed line... The call, byFriends of the Earth, was the latest in a series of criticisms levelled in the run-up to Monday’s unveiling of a public consultation on the plans for the high-speed scheme...Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, said at the launch in Birmingham that the high-speed rail blueprint offered a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to transform travel in the UK... But there have also been detailed criticisms of the wider principle of building a new line, where trains would run at 350kmph (219mph)... Craig Bennett, Friends of the Earth’s policy and campaigns director, said the UK urgently needed a fast and efficient rail system but the high-speed rail plans would do little to encourage people out of aircraft or cars... At the heart of many of the criticisms is the high cost of building a line compared with the benefits achieved... Stephen Glaister, executive director of the pro-motoringRAC Foundation and a respected transport economist, last week highlighted the UK’s existing, relatively fast intercity train service as one reason why high-speed rail might not work as well in the UK as elsewhere... “High-speed rail has become an article of faith with insufficient evidence to support it,” Professor Glaister told the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation...
Baltimore needs an effective transit system.Red Line's light rail service may be expensive, but that's doesn't make a touted rapid bus alternative more cost effective
(Video fromYouTube, by Mechaunt -31 Jan 2007: Riding through Baltimore on a Greyhound bus)
Baltimore,MAR,USA -The Baltimore Sun -23 Aug 2010: ... The debate over whether light rail or a kind of express bus service known as "bus rapid transit," or BRT, is a better fit for projects in Baltimore and Montgomery County... BRT: It's cheaper, and the Maryland Transportation Trust Fund doesn't have money to build a new bus system, either, but even so, to suggest BRT is cheaper is a little misleading.It's less expensive in that you pay less upfront, but it can be surprisingly costly in the long run... That's exactly the problem in Baltimore.Planners looked at BRT as an option for the Red Line but found it's still expensive — more than $1.1 billion if tunnels under Cooks Lane and downtown are built — but much slower and offering less capacity than a $1.6 billion light rail.Worse, computer models and rider surveys showed it would attract far fewer passengers... One could build such a system for as little as $500 million without tunnels, but then travel would be very slow. Even if buses could preempt signals (something the city would probably never allow downtown), commuters would likely get bogged down in traffic because of the disruption it would cause. Buses also have higher operating costs — $2.7 million more annually than light rail, according to a Maryland Transit Administration study...Buses, whether BRT, express or regular commuter, have their place — but they are no panacea.And while it's all very well to pledge to restore past trust fund withdrawals, as Mr. Ehrlich did on Friday, it's another thing to come up with a way to finance such promises whether they involve buses, rail lines or highways...
Buses vs. Rails * Australia - Time running out to fix transport, Federal government warned
Australia’s transport system is totally unprepared for the looming challenges of climate change, rising oil prices and urban congestion Melbourne,Australia -Public Transport Users Association -February 4th, 2008: --... A national coalition of transport groups warned today. In making the warning, the groups urged the federal government to fund the long-overdue expansion of urban and regional rail networks...The warnings are contained in a pre-budget submission to the federal government from public transport user and advocacy groups from each mainland state and the ACT. The submission points to dramatically accelerating climate change, chronic traffic congestion in our major cities, and growing waistlines and oil imports resulting from car dependence.
