Bus Rapid Transit through Light Rail

A full spectrum of options
Recent Developments in Public Transportation, Topic 1 part 1

Los Angeles Metro Orange Line BRT vehicle

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Questions for Southeast Michigan

As Southeast Michigan begins to implement rapid transit in 2014, the enabling legislation has specified a system using "rolling rapid transit", as defined in the Act. This raises a number of questions:

• What exactly is "rolling rapid transit"?
• What types of "rolling rapid transit" systems are available?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of each type?
• Do systems with more aspects of light rail attract more private investment to their corridors?

In September 2013, I spent eleven days in France investigating transit systems in ten cities to try to answer these and other questions. But the first two questions are answered in the legislation that enabled the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) to come into being. Let's take a look there first, so we know what we're talking about.

REGIONAL TRANSIT AUTHORITY ACT
Michigan Public Act 387 of 2012

124.542 Definitions.
Sec. 2. As used in this act:
…
(o) "Public transportation system" means a system for providing public transportation in the form of light rail, rolling rapid transit, or other modes of public transportation and public transportation facilities to individuals.
...
(r) "Rolling rapid transit system" means bus services that may combine the technology of intelligent transportation systems, traffic signal priority, cleaner and quieter vehicles, rapid and convenient fare collection, and integration with land use policy. Rolling rapid transit may include, but is not limited to, all of the following:

(i) Exclusive rights-of-way.
(ii) Rapid boarding and alighting.
(iii) Integration with other modes of transportation

Los Angeles Foothills Transit. Articulated bus,
same model used by Orange Line, but not used as BRT

Though Sec. (2)(o) includes rail transit, for political reasons rail was made especially difficult to approve:
124.546, Sec. 6 (3) …
(b) A board shall provide in its bylaws that the following actions require the unanimous approval of all voting members of the board:

(i) A determination to acquire, construct, operate, or maintain any form of rail passenger service within a public transit region.

Is this “Rolling Rapid Transit”?

I discovered that, like many aspects of law, there are a number of fuzzy, undefined areas. Among other terms, “Bus” is not defined precisely. When a law does not define a term, an authoritative dictionary definition is generally used. Here is Webster’s Online Dictionary’s definition:

“1. a :  a large motor vehicle designed to carry passengers usually along a fixed route according to a schedule There is actually quite a spectrum of vehicles that fit this definition, from purely rubber-tired, free-steering “buses” to “light rail” vehicles with steel wheels rolling on steel rails.

What, then, is BRT?

Four features differentiate BRT from other types of city bus service – three alluded to in PA 357 Sec. (2)(r):

• Dedicated lanes
• Signal priority
• Stations rather than stops
• Pay before your board

Also BRT vehicles are usually larger than local transit buses (having two or three articulated sections). Many have wider doors, doors on both sides, or doors that match the height of station platforms. Most have internal combustion engines; a few use electric power from dual overhead wires (the trolleybus system).

Dedicated lanes for Los Angeles Orange Line.
Built on an abandoned railroad right of way.

A Full Spectrum

Between bus rapid transit and light rail, it turns out there's a full spectrum of choices. We'll look at two ways of classifying these systems - by how they are routed and relate to other traffic, and by how they are guided.

Here's an overview of how bus systems relate to other traffic:

• Arterial Rapid Transit (ART)
  Similar to BRT, but does not have dedicated lanes
  Fewer stops than local transit buses
  

  

  Los Angeles Metro Rapid,
  an example of Arterial Rapid Transit

  
  

• Express Bus: urban
  Follows the same general route as a local bus
  Does not stop at all stops in certain areas
  Does not have dedicated lanes
• Express Bus: commuter
  Takes people from suburb to center city
  Usually has a significant portion of the route on a thruway
  No specifically dedicated lanes, though they often use HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes
• BRT “lite”
  Has some features of BRT, but is missing others
  May have BRT features in some places, but not in all.

Los Angeles Metro Rapid bus
This could also be seen as "BRT Lite"

Now about how they're guided

There are a couple of reasons to provide automatic guidance systems for transit vehicles...

• Docking: this is when the vehicle comes in to a station. The idea is to make it really easy for people to get on and off. To achieve this, the floor of the vehicle and the station platform should be at the same level and very close together - but not touching. This makes it much faster for people to get on and off, and anyone with a wheeled vehicle (wheel chair, stroller, or just baggage) won't have to worry about gaps or steps. It all adds up to getting everybody where they're going more quickly and smoothly.
• Safe navigation: it's very tricky for a driver to steer a large vehicle through narrow, twisting lanes. It can be done more safely and rapidly if the vehicle is guided by a mechanical or computerized system. If a transit system is to have dedicated lanes, it makes sense to make them as small as possible, to leave as much room as we can for other traffic.

Conventional BRT, which best fits the definition of “rolling rapid transit” given in Public Act (PA) 387, runs on rubber tires and is steered by an operator. Many BRT installations have docking guidance, and some have safe navigation guidance as well.

Los Angeles Metro Silver Line vehicle.
This is BRT that runs on restricted thruway lanes.
It is steered manually by the operator.

If BRT is one end of a spectrum, the other end is Light Rail Transit (LRT), which runs on steel wheels and is steered by steel rails and switches rather than by an operator. The rails serve as a full-time automatic guidance system for both docking and safe navigation.

In between BRT and LRT lie four variants:

• Vehicles on rubber tires guided by contact with a roadside rail or curb part or all of the time
• Vehicles on rubber tires guided by optical or magnetic technology part or all of the time
• Vehicles that run on rubber tires and can be steered by a central steel rail part or all of the time
• Vehicles on rubber tires that are steered exclusively by a central steel rail

Over the next few blog entries I will be taking a look at each of these four variants. In the first of these we'll see what's available in curb guided guided systems.

Los Angeles El Monte Station
Serves several LA Metro and Foothills Transit bus routes
This is the western terminus of the Silver Line

To learn more:

• For a thorough and academic coverage of BRT, see the Victoria Transportation Policy Insitutes article: http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm120.htm
• Wikipedia has a very good article about BRT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit.

Pedistrian Killed on Michigan Avenue

Remember Wake Up Washtenaw's news note last month? "On average, each month more than 400 pedestrians are killed in America". It wasn't long before the statistical averages hit us in Washtenaw County. According to a report in The Ypsilanti Courier published Monday, December 7, thirty-five year old Shawna Pinson was killed shortly after 7 P.M. on Sunday, December 6. She was trying to cross Michigan Avenue near Wiard Road. There's a little convenience store near Wiard; perhaps she was trying to get something to eat for her three children on that dark evening (sunset was 5:01 PM). Her children are a boy age 14, and girls age 12 and 5. According to the Courier report, Ms. Pinson's family is "very cash-strapped right now and are searching for ways to bury their loved one during the holiday season." Assistance for Ms. Pinson's burial and holiday gifts for the children are being coordinated by her aunt, Kathy Augustiniak, 734-218-5131.

Michigan Avenue is five lanes wide at that point (two lanes in each direction and one for left turns) and the speed limit is 50 MPH. There is no pedestrian crosswalk at Wiard. The teenage driver of the vehicle that struck Ms. Pinson is quoted by police as having said the pedestrian was "suddenly in the roadway". Though the intersection is lit by two streetlights, there is no traffic control device there, and no median pedestrian refuge.

Our news brief on pedestrian deaths last month was based on Transportation for America's article, Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods). Wake Up Washtenaw has proposed making Michigan Avenue through Ypsilanti and Ypsi Township a transit-oriented infill corridor, based on a plan drafted by the Ypsilanti Township Planning Commission in 2001. The recommendation called for three measures to address the observed issues, "High vehicle speeds" and "Unsafe to cross street at intersections":

• Coordinate with the County Road Commission and MDOT to install safe crosswalks at key intersections and destinations
• Institute traffic calming techniques to reduce speeds along the corridors
• Promote a convenient and comfortable pedestrian environment by providing
  connections to neighborhoods and safe places for walking

This tragic death might have been prevented if the plan had been implemented over the last several years. It was approved on first reading by the Ypsilanti Township Board of Trustees in December, 2001, but according to the late David Nicholson, former Planning Director for the Township, the plan was ultimately turned down because a handful of businessmen stood up and claimed it would be bad for their businesses. (I can't find the minutes of the meeting at which this took place.)

Ypsilanti Township's motto is, "Putting Residents First". I've also heard township Supervisor Brenda Stumbo say, "We're all about jobs!" It's time to start looking beyond "jobs" to "life". Are we between a rock and a hard place financially? You bet. Do we need jobs? Sure we do. Is it acceptable to improve the jobs outlook by letting job-seekers be killed? Absolutely not! I don't know if Ms. Pinson was on the rolls of the job-seekers, but like so many in Ypsilanti Township, she was hard-pressed financially and may have been unemployed. Nobody would support the idea that local jurisdictions should maintain dangerous conditions to improve job prospects, but in effect that's what happened when the 2001 plan was not implemented.

Interestingly, the Township Board actually approved the zoning designations (B-5 and B-6) proposed by the Planning Commission in 2001, but no land was allowed to be zoned with those designations. It's time to revisit the plan and actually assign the new designations to the zones they were planned for. It's time to talk to the County and State about conditions on Michigan Avenue. No improvements will happen overnight, and no funds need be allocated to make it happen. Changes like these take a lot of time and coordination between agencies, authorities, commissions, boards, and landowners. We should have gotten started on this eight years ago, and although it's too late now for Shawna Pinson and her three orphaned children, it's not too late for the rest of us. It's not too late for the Charter Township of Ypsilanti to put residents first - even before jobs.

Wake Up Washtenaw White Paper: 2. Background

Our White Paper series continues with the second section:

2. Background

Climate change. High cost of energy. Growing congestion. Michigan's plummeting economy.

How can we solve all these problems?

The answer lies in taking world-class methods and applying them with American ingenuity and know-how. The place to start? Right here in Washtenaw County.
There are many groups working on these problems: climate, energy, congestion, the economy. What we need is to get all these groups working together.

The key to all these problems is to build sustainable, transit-oriented communities. Sustainability requires minimum dependence on outside resources, including food, energy, and waste management. We have the technology to build sustainable communities; what we have lacked is the collective will to do it. We are now coming to realize the need for sustainability, and with that realization comes a growing will act. There is a realization that we have become dependent on food grown thousands of miles from us, and low-cost transportation can no longer be expected. We all know that heating and cooling costs are spiraling out of control, and we need to find alternatives to fossil fuels if we want to continue to live comfortably.

Why transit-oriented? Because transportation is the largest single factor determining how populations settle and build communities. Civilization as we know it depends on being able to move people and goods around.

The latter half of the twentieth century in the United States based almost all its transportation and settlement patterns on highways. Individuals gained freedom of movement by owning personal automobiles, and distributers of goods gained flexibility by using large trucks.

This was successful and liberating as long as (1) fuel was inexpensive, (2) the number of vehicles did not exceed the capacity of the highway system, and (3) a significant proportion of the population was able to afford private vehicles. But each of these three conditions is now seriously challenged. About 30% of energy expended in the United States is used to move people and goods around. Privately owned vehicles (POVs) now demand an increasing share of personal and community resources.

Though effective at providing flexible transportation, POVs are not efficient for moving large numbers of people. We need communities built for convenient walking and accessible to efficient transportation, in order to free us from dependence on fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and turn around the economy.

But...

They say it can't be done: "Michigan's history and spirit is too deeply rooted in the private automobile." "We can never expect Michiganders to embrace any solution that isn't based on cars."

They say it can't be done: "Michigan's politicians and developers are too happy making money from the status quo." "They'll never be proactive enough to invest in new solutions."

We say, it must be done. Future generations of Michigan residents will trapped in poverty and unsustainable communities if we don't act now.
One extremely valuable and insightful guide is Michigan Future's Progress Report:

To us the clear message from the data we have just reviewed is the key to economic growth is talent. Quite simply, in a flattening world, economic development priority one is to prepare, retain and attract talent.

There are no quick fixes, the Michigan economy is going to continue to lag the nation for the foreseeable future. But there is a path back to high prosperity. As is laid out in our New Agenda report, we believe the framework for action is:

• Building a culture aligned with (rather than resisting) the realities of a flattening world. We need to far more highly value learning, an entrepreneurial spirit and being welcoming to all.
• Creating places where talent - particularly mobile young talent - wants to live. This means expanded public investments in quality of place with an emphasis on vibrant central city neighborhoods.
• Ensuring the long-term success of a vibrant and agile higher education system. This means increasing public investments in higher education. Our higher education institutions - particularly the major research institutions - are the most important assets we have to develop the concentration of talent needed in a knowledge-based economy.
• Transforming teaching and learning so that it is aligned with the realities of a flattening world. All of education needs reinvention. Most important is to substantially increase the proportion of students who leave high school academically ready for higher education.
• Developing new public and, most importantly, private sector leadership that has moved beyond both a desire to recreate the old economy as well as the old fights. A leadership that is clearly focused, at both the state and regional level, on preparing, retaining and attracting talent so that we can prosper in the global economy.

What does talent have to do with sustainable development? In a word, everything. Talented young people are very aware of the crisis looming over our world's climate and our American way of life. They are attracted to innovative solutions to these problems, and eager to lend a hand to make them work. Communities that are built to address these problems are vitally interesting to them; on the other hand, regions that lag behind and cling to old, unsustainable models repel talented young people.

Our American values have long said that responsibility for improving our children's education lies primarily in the public sector. At the same time, American values have put community development in the private sector, though with oversight from the public. While the public sector focuses on retaining and improving Michigan's educational advantages, the private sector should be empowered and encouraged to develop communities that attract talented, mobile young people.

Wake Up Washtenaw sees its role as (1) empowering responsible development through community action to revise our zoning codes, and (2) inviting and encouraging responsible developers and Michigan citizens to invest in sustainable development.

The Wake Up Washtenaw “White Paper”: Overview

This is the first in a series of posts airing the first draft of Wake Up Washtenaw's "What Paper". It's out here for your comments and suggestions, so have at it!

Overview

Wake Up Washtenaw is a non-profit citizens' organization encouraging sustainable, transit-oriented development by private groups in Washtenaw County.

• We encourage sustainable development that is carbon-neutral, and when possible, is able to provide basic food needs and take care of its own waste stream.
  
• We encourage walkable, transit-oriented development that enables residents to get to their jobs, shopping, recreation and worship without the need for privately owned vehicles.
  
• We encourage development by a consortium or similar group of private businesses and residents, rather than depending on public funding.
  
• Now is the time to begin: a low point in the economic cycle is a good time for planning new projects and investing in the necessary resources. In addition, the certainty of climate change and the limits of fossil fuels have brought public awareness to an all-time high.

It's not enough for citizens to wait for "them" to do something about our changing needs. It is necessary for all of us to work together to make sustainable living possible - and profitable.