Using BRT as a Transit Band-Aid

[Jonno]

http://m.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/09/using-brt-transit-band-aid/3147/

Eric Jaffe is a contributing writer to The Atlantic Cities and the author of The King's Best Highway: The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route That Made America. He lives in New York. All posts »

When a new metro line opened up in Istanbul a couple weeks ago, it mostly served as a reminder of something the city has been awaiting for the better part of a decade. That would be the massive Marmaray project, a rail tunnel beneath the Bosphorous strait that will link the European and Asian sides of the intercontinental city. The delays have been reasonable — crews have had to deal with tricky geography, safety precautions required by a nearby fault line, and archeological discoveries made during the digging — but the initial phase is still a year from opening, and the full deal several more.

The city wisely recognized that the immediacy of its traffic problem demanded some sort of short-term solution. Its response was to lay down, within a couple of years, a bus-rapid transit system known as the Metrobus. The 26-mile line operates in dedicated lanes along the D-100 expressway and connects both sides of the city across the Bosphorous Bridge. By most measures it's been a great success, according to a recent profile of the system in the Journal of Transport Geography.

For starters, it's pretty fast. Except on the bridge, where it enters mixed traffic, Metrobus nears speeds of 50 miles an hour and completes its entire route in about 60 minutes. That's at least twice as fast as cars travel in the corridor, and also considerably faster than the previous bus and ferry system. It's also convenient: an estimated 10 percent of the entire metro population lives within a 10-minute walk of the nearest station.

The frequency is almost ceaseless. High-capacity Mercedes buses, which can fit up to 200 passengers at a time, arrive every 30 seconds during rush hour on the European side (and every 45 seconds at the bridge crossing). During morning peak, ridership tops 30,000 each way, and the system as a whole serves more than 620,000 passengers a day. EMBARQ puts the total figure much higher. Still the bus is crowded; it's not unusual for waiting passengers to board the third bus they see.

The city's mayor, Kadir Topbaş, recently noted that with the numbers being handled by the Metrobus, the corridor should have a light rail system of its own. Evidently the bridge over the city's Golden Horn inlet can't accommodate rail, so instead Topbaş is proposing a plan that attaches the buses together, so they form a sort of "metrobus-train." With frequencies already so close together, it's hard to see how that idea would do anything but waste some rope.

Istanbul isn't the first city to try BRT as a transit band-aid and realize what it really needed was a suture. Ottawa recently went through a similar experience with its own BRT system. The city proposed a (Canadian) $2.1 billion light rail to increase capacity — a project so expensive that transit writer Yonah Freemark wondered if it wouldn't have been more fiscally prudent to choose light rail from the start. "For other cities considering investing in reserved-bus corridors before light rail, Ottawa's may be a cautionary tale," he wrote.

Still, if Istanbul dismissed such a caution, it would be hard to fault the city. For starters, it didn't need BRT to prove the value of mass transit. Ottawa's BRT showed that transit could capture a quarter of the city's transportation share, but in Istanbul, that figure is now 50 percent, and was high even under the old system of slower buses. Meanwhile the city had already decided to invest heavily in the Marmaray project, which is estimated to cost up to (American) $3 billion.

Rather, Istanbul's major concern moving forward should be getting people off its enormously congested roads. Public transit has half the city's transportation share, yes, but only 4 percent of that share belongs to rail. The completion of Marmaray, and its connection to the existing metro, light rail, and Metrobus lines, is expected to boost rail ridership closer to a quarter of all transit — that's a big cultural change. To date, only 9 percent of Metrobus riders have shifted to the mode from car use, as many as shifted there from trains.

The real cautionary tale of Istanbul may be the way it handled highways to make way for the Metrobus. It did give the system dedicated lanes throughout the corridor (except for the bridge), but it did so by narrowing — as opposed to removing — other lanes. That created loads of induced demand, as the old buses left the mixed lanes, inviting more cars onto the squished highways. And by refusing to make room for a dedicated BRT lane, the bridge authorities further increased congestion, decreased BRT efficiency, and perpetuated the city's road-first mindset.

Istanbul seems to have successfully weathered a tough era of congestion by implementing BRT as a transition to rail. Soon it will have the high-capacity trunk rail line that's long been needed. The city's next challenge will be making sure people get off the roads and use it.

This is a very important comment...

real cautionary tale of Istanbul may be the way it handled highways to make way for the Metrobus. It did give the system dedicated lanes throughout the corridor (except for the bridge), but it did so by narrowing — as opposed to removing — other lanes. That created loads of induced demand, as the old buses left the mixed lanes, inviting more cars onto the squished highways. And by refusing to make room for a dedicated BRT lane, the bridge authorities further increased congestion, decreased BRT efficiency, and perpetuated the city's road-first mindset.

Also important is...

The city's mayor, Kadir Topbaş, recently noted that with the numbers being handled by the Metrobus, the corridor should have a light rail system of its own

.  Not the fact that it should have been Light Rail but that the starting point is "What volume of people need to be moved?" as opposed to "What's this going to cost?"

[#Metro]

Capacity depends on the design. Frequency is important too.
It is easy to say 'Let's put LRT everywhere' but there is still a role for bus in the meantime.

Sydney would be great place for LRT and because they don't have a legacy system like Melbourne, can be designed to be much more efficient
and accessible from the start.

[somebody]

This system seems to have ridership comparable to Melbourne Metro, on one line as opposed to 15 (IIRC) in MEL.

Sounds like a raging success to me.  Why the negativity?

[#Metro]

It is not hard to calculate the top limit for LRT

510 pax tram (largest tram on Earth, built by Siemens) x 45 trams per hour (a tram every 1.5 minutes) = 22 950 ppd

even at one per minute...

510 pax tram x 60 trams per hour = 30 600

and that is under IDEAL conditions (perfect crowding, perfect intersection free lines etc). Capacity would be less under real world conditions. Around 10 000 - 15 000 pphd on the street, in class B ROW.

If istanbul built a tram system then it would be at capacity already anyway, plus it would have the additional costs of overhead wiring, digging up the street and laying down rails.

The real cautionary tale of Istanbul may be the way it handled highways to make way for the Metrobus. It did give the system dedicated lanes throughout the corridor (except for the bridge), but it did so by narrowing — as opposed to removing — other lanes. That created loads of induced demand, as the old buses left the mixed lanes, inviting more cars onto the squished highways. And by refusing to make room for a dedicated BRT lane, the bridge authorities further increased congestion, decreased BRT efficiency, and perpetuated the city's road-first mindset.

^ This is the problem with Brisbane. Not interested in anything unless it doesn't touch the car lane. Result? 150 million to 465 million dollar PER KM busways.

Ottawa - you have to remember that due to the costs of LRT, they can only afford to replace the core of the system. Buses are still going to run to it. You can't put Light Rail everywhere. Also, the Ottawa LRT system will be run more like a light metro system with multiple coupled trainsets.

And with regards to full buses at peak hour - why not just charge a bit more....

[ozbob]

LRT in Manila carries up to 1350 pax per 4 car tram ..

designed to achieve up to 60,000 passengers per hour per direction ...

[colinw]

LRT in Monterrey, Mexico handled 136.6 million passengers, 370,600 per day, on 31 route km with 40 high floor LRT vehicles.

This is high floor LRT with multiple unit tram/trains, and is the sort of thing that would have to take over the busway if we ever needed to convert.  Through the city there is an underground section.

Guadalajara, Mexico, has a similar but slightly newer system which is also doing well. The Guadalajara system is not fully grade separated, unlike Monterrey.

It would be a major strategic failure if the inner city Busway under the river was not designed to accommodate conversion to light metro / high end LRT like these North American systems.

[Jonno]

My take on the article is that it is highlighting the following:

1. start with the end in Mind.  If you want high PT % of mode share then work out what sort of system/services are required to achieve it.  Don't start by looking at the current levels and build for a small increase.  As we know when the services are put in place they quickly achieve the moderate increase and then hit limitations.
2. removing PT from traffic without reducing road capacity is counter-intuitive.  It results in more people on the roads.

This is irrespective of the mode.

[#Metro]

Thanks for the examples, and I am aware of these, however:

1. They're in class A, i.e. not on roads
2. They operate as light metro (multiple trams coupled into trainsets)
3. They have huge overcrowding

In cases like this, you would skip LRT altogether and go for the full blown metro or light metro.
LRT conversion of the SE busway is not worth it. It would have to go straight to light or heavy metro options (rubber tyred or vancouver style).

Brisbane has started with the BUZ network and we have around 20 BUZ routes in operation after about 10 years. Could Brisbane have built 20 tram lines all over the city in that same space of time for the same cost? Doubt it.