Comment by bombcar
7 days ago
I've yet to see a convincing argument that trains are cheaper than busses (especially when you consider that most of a bus's route (in the USA) would be on "free" roads).
Trains can certainly HOLD more people than a bus, and I hate buses with a passion normally reserved for religious arguments, and trains are Choo-choo, but they are expensive as all hell.
If they weren't why would BRT exist at all? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q-UHd9tFNk
If the bus is using "free" roads, then it's forced to compete for space with general traffic and likely to perform far worse than BRT or trains that don't have to do this. Worse performance/speed/frequency => lower ridership => worse profitability => calls to cancel the "wasteful" bus etc.
The only way out IMO is that we have to stop ripping off the public by giving away unlimited road space for free.
> I've yet to see a convincing argument that trains are cheaper than busses (especially when you consider that most of a bus's route (in the USA) would be on "free" roads).
For a given capacity requirement, in a dense city, they're cheaper. The biggest costs of an urban train line are 1) building stations on expensive land 2) driver salaries, and buses are worse on both aspects; you need much more station space to load/unload the same number of people from buses than from trains, and buses carry far fewer passengers per driver.
> If they weren't why would BRT exist at all?
As far as I can tell BRT is a spook, a way for the road lobby to stop cities building rail. Has it ever actually worked out well for passengers?
Bus lifespan is 15-20 years max and needs tons of maintenance during that time. Trains last 40 years and go 100,000 miles+ between failures.
Trains are a bigger upfront investment, but are cheaper in the long run, especially once capacity is factored in. You need a lot of busses to equal moderate sized trains.
Busses have their place, but not as the backbone for rapid transit in even moderate sized urban areas.
BRT trades CAPX for OPEX. In Latin America where BRT is hugely successful capital is expensive and labour is cheap, so hiring a ton of drivers is easy. In high labour costs markets like the US, Canada, and Europe BRT falls apart. It's often all transit agencies think they can get funding and support for so it's pushed, but it's way too easy to cut back BRT attributes like signal priority, dedicated lanes, and all door boarding to end up with just a bus with a fancy livery.
I'm sure it differs by metro area, but somehow "dollar vans" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_vans_in_the_New_York_me...) can be profitable in NYC, but most US public transit systems are huge money losers.
It's quite easy to make a profit from a bus system that operates in peak commuter hours on peak commuter routes. It's virtually impossible to make a profit from one that has a public service obligation.
The key benefit of BRT is that they have a dedicated right-of-way without conflicts with other traffic just like train tracks with full grade separation. So to do that, BRT suddenly no longer has free roads. You now need dedicated BRT-only roads.