The lowly bus is getting a makeover that could one day help workers whiz past traffic to their jobs on time while saving fuel in the world’s thirstiest oil consumer.
For decades most commuters have maligned buses as noisy, dirty and much slower than cars in city traffic, since they make many stops.
But some 120 cities in developing economies from Colombia to China that have invested in high-tech systems known as bus rapid transit, or BRT, have taken the transport mode to a higher level.
Some 28 million commuters in cities including Bogota, Mexico City, and Jakarta rode BRT lines every workday last year, according to Embarq, a global transport network at the environmental think tank World Resources Institute.
BRT systems cut commute times because their buses go express to and from the busiest points on dedicated lanes. The buses load from the back and front, and passengers prepay fares at stations. Routes are coordinated with traffic signals and comfortable, protected stations lure new riders.
Los Angeles, with its Orange line, and Cleveland, which boasts the Health line, have already begun to adopt the systems. But those are the only U.S. cities that have developed full-blown BRT lines.
New York recently opened a rapid Select Bus Service line in the Bronx and one on the East Side of Manhattan. But transport experts consider those “BRT light” because they lack dedicated lanes and the buses sometimes get stuck behind vehicles that borrow or park in their lanes.
U.S. cities are far less dense and pollution-plagued than cities such as Sao Paulo and Beijing that are driving the BRT trend. But even in the United States there is potential for more BRT because it can maximize the thing most governments don’t have enough of — money.
“The lesson U.S. cities are learning from ones in other countries is that in order for them to compete economically, in order for their businesses to thrive, they need to have access to a broad pool of labor across metropolitan areas who are not centered in one place,” said Robert Puentes, a fellow for metropolitan policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “BRT can help provide that.”
BRT is far less expensive than light rail, which has been coveted by many U.S. cities with growing populations. And many cities can forget about building new underground trains. Costs for building BRT can run $1 million per mile compared to $1 billion per mile for subways.
Hildago said companies that make light rail systems, such as Alstom and Bombardier Inc have long been more organized to lobby and pursue projects than bus companies. They plan big projects while bus companies have mainly thought about delivering their coaches to market.
But that could be changing. Volvo and Mercedes-Benz have put teams in place that are pushing the case for BRT.
Still, the rapid bus is not for everyone. “BRT is a terrific technology that can be a very cost efficient way to move a lot of people on transit, ” said Roy Kienitz, the Department of Transportation under secretary for policy. But he said few people outside of Los Angeles have figured out how to develop full-blown BRT systems in the United States.
America’s love affair with the car, which has helped lead to suburban sprawl, is a hurdle. “The U.S. has given so much preference to auto mobility, that the discussion of giving priority to buses is very difficult, even if that’s the best choice,” said Dario Hildago, a senior engineer at Embarq in Colombia who advises governments on transit.
So BRT backers like Marc Elrich, a councilman in Montgomery County, Maryland have had to get creative. Elrich has taken his plan straight to businesses like hospitals and hotels not far from the famously grid-locked Beltway and other clogged routes. “They need to get workers to work,” he said, “people can’t work when they are stuck in traffic.”
Elrich helped push developers to hire lobbyists to convince state and federal governments to support BRT.
Brookings’ Puentes said that after the failure of the U.S. climate bill, which would have put a price on emissions from vehicles, BRT supporters will have to work harder to find ways to finance the systems.
The 2009 federal stimulus package funded billions for new transport, including some BRT projects. But cities cannot rely on the U.S. government for everything.
“If you’re sitting around waiting for the federal government to put a $1 a gallon tax on gasoline that could help support BRT you’re going to be sitting around for many years,” said Puentes.
In Cleveland, the Health line gets funding from hospitals who competed to name the line.
Leaders in other cities are working to convince businesses to pay taxes for BRT because it could cut commute times. Such taxes are already in place in Virginia which is building a rail extension that could end up billions of dollars over budget. Higher highway tolls for vehicles could also help BRT.
BRT backers also hope to take advantage of recent market and social trends. Fuel prices could help, especially as bus companies develop fuel efficient hybrid coaches. U.S. oil prices have moved past $100 a barrel for the second time since 2008.
And young people in the United States are increasingly living in cities and avoiding buying cars. The share of vehicle miles driven by people aged 21 to 30 fell to 14 percent in 2009 from 21 percent in 1995, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
