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The expense of buses is illusory: buses wear out faster, break down more often, have smaller capacities, and can't be entrained together. There is also a persistent glossing-over of road re-surfacing costs. Transit buses are extremely heavy, and their weight is disproportionately distributed on the rear axle. The degree of damage to a road from a passing vehicle scales as the *fourth* power of axle weight. This means that a bus does as much damage to a road as about 5000 cars. (Search "transit bus ESAL" for more details).

You realize all of these things apply to streetcars as buses, right? And the capacity of most streetcars (the ones planned for use in DC, for instance) is pretty much the same maximum capacity as an articulated bus. Also, buses don't necessarily wear down more often or break more frequently - it's a question of use and mainteennce, and National Transit Database and other data consistently bears this out. (Also, the new generation of electric drive buses largely will erase this wear and tear disparity)

The HOV lanes on I-395 were originally for express buses only, but motorists saw the existence of space between buses and demanded to be allowed to fill it and now the lanes mostly provide more space for cars.

This isn't true either. The Shirley busway was originally intended to allow for express rapid bus service (it was an UMTA project, actually), and once Metro was built, a lot of that express capacity was no longer needed as riders shifted to Metro (express buses still use the busway, as you know - especially transit from PWC (Omnitrans)

by AA on Jun 18, 2012 5:06 pm • link • report