A new bus rapid transit system opened in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2010. Here’s a look at the system and some of the ideas our region (looking at you, Montgomery County) might put to use.

The MyCiTi Adderley station in Cape Town’s city center. All photos by the author unless noted.

Cape Town opened the MyCiTi BRT just in time to carry visitors around the South African city for FIFA World Cup that year. The network now encompasses 31 routes with more than 500 stations and stops that showcases many of BRT’s strengths and weaknesses when not fully implemented.

The MyCiTi bus system offers a comfortable, safe, and largely reliable formal transit system in parts of Cape Town and its environs that are unserved by its Metrorail commuter rail system. In many places it replaced an informal network of vans that plied major streets and corridors.

A map of the MyCiTi BRT network.

The BRT system has 36 rail-like stations with faregates and level boarding at key points and along busy routes.

Faregates at a MyCiTi station, riders use tap myconnect cards for payments.

MyCiTi stops are simple affairs ranging from shelters to just a sign on the side of the road.

A MyCiti bus stop with a shelter.

MyCiTi has dedicated lanes in some areas, allowing the buses to speed past traffic. However, these do not extend the full length of routes, leaving buses to the whims of traffic on many popular routes.

The dedicated bus lane ends with the red paint on the road.

This hybrid of true BRT and a regular bus network is an example of “BRT creep,” which is where services that characterize BRT get cut back and the system starts to look more like a standard bus system.

Still, MyCiTi is a positive step forward for Cape Town. The system replaced an informal van system, improving safety— a big concern in South Africa— comfort and reliability for transit riders. In addition, it cost much less to build— R6.5 billion ($477 million) as of this May — than a comparable light rail system or heavy rail system. That’s especially important in South Africa, a country where transportation funds of any kind are limited.

In addition, bus riders in central Cape Town bridge race and socioeconomic lines, which are still noticeable in South Africa more than 20 years after the end of Apartheid.

Five years since opening, MyCiTi bus carries an average of about 48,000 passengers on weekdays.

MyCiTi has some lessons for Montgomery County

Montgomery County in Maryland has ambitious plans to build an 81-mile BRT system across the county.

Map by Peter Dovak.

BRT creep is a very real concern in Montgomery County. The County Council has already watered down its original plan by shrinking some routes and removing dedicated lanes and other aspects that add the “rapid transit” to buses in others.

More cuts to the BRT plan could occur as county leaders figure out a way to fund the proposed system.

Cape Town shows that a hybrid system, which works in many ways for the South African city’s unique set of circumstances, could suffer from many of the same problems as the existing bus network: slow, unreliable transit that sits in the same traffic as the car next to it.

Montgomery County should follow the example of Cape Town’s city center stations and dedicated lanes and roll something similar out across the county.

For more on transit developments in other cities and around the world, check out Ned’s’s writing on Dallas, Hartford, San Diego and San Francisco.