Posts about Brazil

Such an effort might face a bit of an obstacle in the United States, thanks to our obsession with large SUVs. But if 8 athletic (and jiu-jitsu-trained) Brazilians aren't around to clear the crosswalk for you, you can always fall back on the tried and true method: stink-eye. Or traffic cameras.

Thanks to The Atlantic Cities for bringing this video to our attention.

It all started with Curitiba, Brazil, which pioneered BRT in 1972, reducing congestion, improving air quality, and shortening travel times. The Curitiba system has been a model for others, including powerhouse systems like TransMilenio in Bogotá, which carries 44,000 passengers per hour per direction during the peak period. Car use has gone down, and traffic fatalities have declined by 56 percent.

"What's important isn't if the tire is a steel tire or a rubber tire," said Hidalgo. "What's important is the service that's provided to the people."

Logic like this flies in the face of entrenched biases in favor of one mode or another. Rail, especially, has its adherents among those who think buses are a lower-class form of transportation, ridden only by those with no other option. But more than 20 percent of TransMilenio riders own cars. "We can't be religious about modes," said Robert Puentes of Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Program.

BRT is characterized by three principal traits, as articulated by ITDP Director Walter Hook in a Streetfilm about BRT released today.

1. BRT runs on exclusive lanes, so it's not slowed down by traffic jams. (That allows the TransMilenio to average 20 miles per hour while New York City buses crawl along at under eight mph.)

2. The station is on a platform at the same level as the floor of the bus. Usually, those stations are designed by architects and aren't substantively different from the experience of being in a rail station. Passengers pay upon entering the station, not the bus, speeding up the boarding process. Another time-saver is that all the doors open at once and passengers can board quickly en masse, like they do on a subway.

3. BRT is that the buses have priority at intersections, often through some kind of priority signaling.

Hidalgo and other experts noted that one of BRT's best features is also one of its weaknesses: its fast implementation time. It can take decades to acquire rights-of-way and lay the track for a new rail system, but a city already owns its medians and can launch a BRT system relatively fast. In Latin America, Hidalgo says, it's often rushed to correspond to the election cycle, as politicians hurry to get it up and running in time to get re-elected. And rushing a complex transportation system won't usually yield the most ideal, carefully-planned system a city could hope for.

It's not surprising that the developing world has been the pioneer of BRT, since it is a far less costly system to build than rail. Operating costs of rail can be lower, since it requires fewer drivers for more cars. (Rapid transit buses can be articulated, but even the longest bus won't compete with trains.)

However, rail ridership has to be very high for the operating costs of rail to end up lower than BRT. And almost all of Latin America's BRT systems' vehicles and operational costs are fully paid for out of the farebox.

Mark Elrich, a BRT supporter on the Montgomery County Council in Maryland, says when looking for ways to alleviate the county's notorious traffic congestion, he went looking for rail alternatives, not buses. He said he was biased toward rail. But he was eventually drawn to the flexibility of BRT, which allows one corridor to be used to travel southbound in the morning and northbound in the evening. But what really sold him was the price.

Sam Zimmerman, who spent 28 years in the USDOT and is now an urban transport advisor at the World Bank, says those costs shouldn't tempt those who want to lower them even further.

If you have a BRT plan and people are nervous about the costs, they'll say, 'Do you really need dedicated vehicles? It's OK to run a two-door articulated bus with the floor 90 inches off the ground. You don't have to spend the money on new buses. Do you really need a dedicated right-of-way? Run it in mixed traffic, we don't want to piss anybody off. Do you really need an architect-designed station? This is a bus! We'll get it delivered off the back of a flatbed truck.'

At the end of the day, will it work as just another bus route? Sure! Will it be BRT? No. Now imagine if someone was proposing a light rail line and you said, 'Do you really need the track?'

Zimmerman said even environmentalists and livability advocates repeat slander about buses, saying that they're inherently polluting and noisy, as well as slow, unreliable, and uncomfortable. None of those things are true of well-designed BRT systems, he says.

You'll never get everybody out of their cars, Elrich said. But if you can get enough people to ride the bus enough of the time to reduce vehicle miles traveled by just 8.3 percent, Montgomery County would return to 2002 carbon emissions levels. Double that and you could get down to 1990 levels.

Cross-posted at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

On the main bus line, the 351 tube stations are sleek and modern. Passengers pay when they enter the station, avoiding a delay when entering the bus. The buses are long, with several doors allowing passengers to enter and the bus doors correspond with several doors at each station, enabling speedy entrance to and egress from the buses. Buses on primary express routes are "bi-articulated," containing three cars with accordion-style dividers that enable them to navigate tight turns quickly and efficiently.

Within the stations, bus stops are identified with a clear map similar to the Metro route map. A tourist like myself can easily navigate most of the city by following the bus route on a map. Unfortunately, because the buses are used on multiple routes and because the bus network covers so much territory, complete routes are not shown inside every bus.

A single fare of R$2.20 Brazilian Reals (US$1.22) enables a rider to take a single bus as far as it travels, even from Curitiba's furthest suburbs into the city center. Fare revenue accounts for 100 percent of Curitiba's operating budget. (Its capital budget—the cost of building the system—came from international investment including the World Bank and French Development Agency.)

Property values adjacent to the bus line have shown consistent increases when new express routes are constructed, increasing tax revenues to local governments. Buses utilize 20% Biodiesel to minimize emissions of carbon and other pollutants.

Less positive aspects of the system

Because the current system dates to 1974, the 29 primary bus terminals that facilitate transfers between collector and primary bus routes are aging. The two I visited were not especially attractive, and abundantly covered with graffiti.

Ms. Dos Santos told me that "the rich do not use the system much." Those who have access to the comfort and privacy of their automobiles opt out of using the BRT system. In general, I did not find the BRT experience comparable to fixed-rail systems in terms of comfort. Curitiba does not have a system like Metrorail, although there are plans to construct a rail line in time for the 2014 World Cup.

Lessons for Montgomery County, Maryland

According to Ms. Dos Santos, the rate of automobile ownership in Curitiba is 22%, while transit usage is 40% and the balance of commuters travel by motorcycle or motor scooter, or walk. This helps to explain why ridership of the BRT system is so high and why farebox revenues cover operating costs.

By contrast, in Montgomery County, 66% of workers drive to work alone while only 14.9% commute by rail or bus, according to the 2008 American Community Survey.

Another important difference is the price of gasoline, which is substantially more expensive in Brazil (R$2.49 Brazilian Reals per liter, or approximately U.S. $5.20 per gallon, while I was there) than in the U.S., making automobile travel substantially less affordable for working Brazilians.

The critical question is whether increased frequency, speed and convenience would persuade enough Montgomery County residents to ride the bus to make the system financially sustainable. Even in Curitiba, where per capita income was $17,977 Brazilian Reals (U.S. $10,005) in 2006, upscale people do not ride the bus. And there are far more upscale people in Montgomery County, where per capita income is U.S. $35,684.

The county's current Ride-On bus system generates only approximately 15% of its revenue from fares, with the remainder subsidized from general tax revenues. The current budget crisis has highlighted the Ride-On system's significant expense to taxpayers, although the County Council has so far resisted cuts in Ride-On service proposed by the County Executive. How much more can we afford to expand the bus system even if the current 85% subsidy from all taxpayers decreased to a subsidy of 80%, 75% or lower?

Also relevant is that the county's bus storage and maintenance facility is at its absolute limit of available space, and a new storage and maintenance facility proposed for Clarksburg has been delayed because of concerns over runoff into Ten Mile Creek, so there is currently no place to store additional buses in the county.

Curitiba has a long history of transit service, dating back to horse-drawn trolleys in 1887. Planning for 20 primary express bus routes began in 1966 and the system opened in 1974. For more than 35 years, primary roads have been designed to accommodate the BRT system. Municipalities in the Curitiba region served by URBS delegate management of the transit system to URBS, whose board members are appointed by the Mayor of Curitiba.

In Montgomery County, however, major roads would need to be redesigned to accommodate bus rapid transit. The state of Maryland's recent reconstruction of Route 29 represented a critical missed opportunity to develop express bus lanes in the middle.

Our county's primary roads (Route 29, New Hampshire Avenue, Georgia Avenue, Connecticut Avenue, Routes 28 & 198, Veirs Mill Road, University Boulevard, Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville Pike, and I-270) are owned, designed and maintained by the State Highway Administration. It would require close coordination between the county, the state and possibly the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) would be necessary to accomplish the BRT vision. Ridership will be a very important criterion for winning federal funding, but ridership is the key question regarding whether the system can succeed here.

Accommodating through automobile traffic on primary roads will be another key issue. Because the buses travel on a dedicated route, automobiles may not cross primary streets at every intersection. In Montgomery County, this will affect many neighborhood streets whose residents are accustomed to being able to cross major streets or make left and right turns to exit their neighborhoods—all of which could be restricted with rapid bus routes down the center of major streets.

My visit to Curitiba was a great experience and there is no question that I would love to see similar technology employed in Montgomery County. In the near term, I will advocate for BRT on Veirs Mill Road, which along with University Boulevard has just received a federal grant for bus transit improvements, and Georgia Avenue. I am also optimistic about prospects for BRT on the Inter County Connector and the proposal for BRT on Rockville Pike contained in the White Flint Sector Plan, now pending before the County Council.

On the other hand, my visit to Curitiba did not persuade me that BRT compares favorably to fixed-rail systems as an effective inducement for riders to leave their automobiles at home. I will continue to advocate strongly for light rail on the Purple Line and, while I understand that cost factors may ultimately persuade Governor O'Malley to select BRT for the Corridor Cities Transitway, my preference remains light rail for that system as well.

George Leventhal is an at-large member of the Montgomery County Council. He serves on the Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee.