Pave Over the Tracks!

[colinw]

Here's a lovely bit of lunacy from the Neocon/Thatcherite Institute of Economic Affairs in the UK:

Institute of Economic Affairs -> Paving over the tracks: a better use of Britain's railways?

The Guardian -> Express busways: the ultimate rail replacement service

[Arnz]

Maglev bus network in Australia anybody? 

[red dragin]

Lots of woulds and coulds in that top article.

[colinw]

Meanwhile, in the real world, a couple more Beeching era cuts have been reversed:
- The Borders Railway has reinstated the Edinburgh to Tweedbank part of the Edinburgh - Carlisle "Waverley Route", with momentum building for the next section.
- The formerly single track Bicester to Oxford line has been rebuilt as 160km/h double track, and connected to the mainline at  Bicester, as the first stage of reinstating much of the old Oxford to Cambridge line. This is quite a big project including reinstating passenger services on a freight line north from Aylesbury,  rebuilding the mothballed Bicester to Bletchley line, eliminating a couple of dozen level crossings, and electrification by around 2019.
- The single track Swindon to Kemble section of the Swindon - Stroud - Gloucester "Golden Valley" line, a Beeching era cut, has been re-duplicated, allowing a big improvement in service frequency.
- The re-opening of the Bristol to Portishead line for suburban services is progressing, with the site of a new Portishead station selected.

THAT is the reality of rail in the UK, not paving over lines to make busways. 

In fact, the one rail to busway conversion that did happen, at Cambridge, is proving a major pain in the neck with huge costs, poor patronage, and it interferes with reinstatement of the Oxford - Cambridge line which will have to take a different route at the Cambridge end.

[hU0N]

I can't speak to any particular example, but the idea of converting heavy rail to busway is not per se bad. It really does depend on the circumstances and the technology that best suits.

Heavy rail (dependent on station length) excels at capacity. It can also excel at speed and at low opex. (The cost of operating a heavy rail vehicle is ferociously high, but IF it's well patronized, you can divide this cost so many ways that it virtually disappears). But heavy rail is significantly out performed on a bunch of other metrics.

Busways excel at frequency because they are (per vehicle) so much cheaper to run, meaning you only need a moderate bump in patronage to pay for an extra service in the timetable. Also, provided a busway is relatively short and of an open design, it's effective catchment width is much larger. (This is due to other technologies broadening their catchment by relying on feeder services which come with a psychological penalty. This penalty can be offset with other benefits such as higher speed in the trunk segment, but this requires some journey length to accrue).

LRT excels at getting near Class A performance out of a Class B ROW. And on a bunch of other metrics it splits the difference between busway and heavy rail.

Point is, if the problem a particular railway is serving is a highly coordinated high demand for high speed travel along a specific corridor (particularly if that corridor is long), then heavy rail is your best solution.

If however you are looking at a diffuse (in time and space) demand located reasonably close to their destinations then busway conversion makes real sense.

What technologies are already using a corridor is also a valid consideration, but only if the existing technologies are already working well for the market they are serving.