Those Evil Buses

The east and west sides of Charlotte have been afraid that the transit system the city is building will end up with classy light rail or commuter rail for all the other corridors but yucky buses for the East and West.

I’m just back from a two-day conference in Boston (Cambridge, to be precise) and one afternoon we ended up riding around the greater Boston area on the T – meaning using the heavy rail (that is, subway) system primarily but also taking a short hop on the new Silver Line. Bus. Bus Rapid Transit. In the argot of Transportation Jargon, it’s BRT.

If you travel much in Boston you probably already know the Red line goes to Harvard Square in Cambridge. The Green line goes to Fenway Park and to whatever they call Boston Garden these days. The Blue line goes to the aquarium and goes sort of near Logan Airport. Now, the new Silver Line goes to the airport, too, and depending on where you’re going it’s got a good chance of being a better choice, meaning fewer transfers, than Blue.

The Silver Line is – how to put this and still sound like a journalist? – gorgeous. The station is new and clean, which isn’t how you’d describe many of Boston’s aging subway stations.

These buses aren’t like the ones that ply the streets of Boston, Charlotte, or just about any other city of any size. They’re new, but just as important, they’re powered by overhead electrical lines, which makes them clean and quiet. They can also switch to diesel fuel. They’re designed so people hauling luggage don’t have to lift the suitcases to get from platform to bus. In the section of the Silver Line we went on, the bus had its own dedicated path, just like the subway does. In fact, part of the newly opened Silver Line runs through a tunnel that had to be carved underneath downtown Boston. Swedish boring equipment, I was told.

Some parts of the Silver Line that have to go into Boston traffic aren’t as rapid. And the Silver Line, at this point, is in two sections with no connection – a connection that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make.

One attraction of bus rapid transit is that it’s cheaper than laying rails. Seems to me, though, when you tunnel under a city and install electrical wires you’re making BRT kinda pricey. Even so, it was cheaper than just adding another subway link. And in 20 years or so – once the Big Dig is paid for, presumably – the Silver Line can be converted to rail if that seems important and there’s money available.

Of course, part of the reason to build the transit system in Charlotte is to attract growth to the transit corridors. Whether bus rapid transit will lure growth as well as rail is an open question and not one that should be dismissed. Plenty of other factors count, too, such as the affordability calculation, which takes into account based projected ridership and projected construction and operating costs. With fewer riders, you need less-expensive construction costs or you don’t get those all important federal dollars. The transit decision-makers can’t ignore those formulas.

But the headline is this: The bus transit wasn’t smelly or loud, like surface buses. Because it had its own path it was rapid. The transfer from rail to bus was seamless – just like switching to another subway line. If anything, the ride on the new bus transit was more attractive than the older rail.

Would it fly in Charlotte? I’m guessing it would.