What’s the Deal With San Francisco’s 11-Year Bus Rapid Transit Project?

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from the Next City blog:



What’s the Deal With San Francisco’s 11-Year Bus Rapid Transit Project?

San Francisco | 12/16/2013 12:04pm |
Stephen J. Smith | Next City




Two months ago, when New York City announced that it would begin bus rapid transit service (well, sort of) on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, blogger Ben Kabak blasted city and state officials for taking five years to plan and implement a single enhanced bus line:

It’s mind-boggling that it took five years for a low-rent version of bus rapid transit to move from concept to reality, and it’s crazy that the MTA is highlighting this timeframe in their press materials. Five years is longer than a presidential term; the amount of time that’s passed since the start of the Great Recession; half a decade. The results are a dedicated bus lane with pre-board fare payment options and some multi-hued pavement. Imagine if the end result were actually transformative.

This process has taken so long because DOT and the MTA have been forced to hold meetings with virtually every single person who lives along the B44. Time and time again, business owners, residents and Community Boards have to offer input every time the plans change. This is no way to build a transit network, and it’s something that needs to be addressed. The mayoral candidates all believe buses are our future, but buses aren’t anyone’s future if it takes five years to get one line’s worth of improvements rolled out.

But on the left coast, along comes an enhanced bus project that makes New York look like a paragon of speed and efficiency: San Francisco’s Geary Boulevard BRT. A feasibility study was approved in 2007, and after some prodding by a local politician, the completion date has been accelerated to 2018. (Before Supervisor Eric Mar’s intervention, opening day wasn’t planned until 2020.) Environmental analysis, engineering and design will take up the bulk of the time, with two years planned for construction.

That’s 11 years from the feasibility study to the start of operation, or longer than planning and construction of the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France.

As on Nostrand Avenue, there were once plans to build a subway beneath the length of Geary Boulevard. Both streets easily have enough traffic for rail-based rapid transit, or at least light rail, but because of high tunneling and construction costs — and, in the case of San Francisco, some misplaced priorities — both have been reduced to enhanced bus service. ...........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://nextcity.org/theworks/entry/san-franciscos-eleven-year-bus-rapid-transit-project