🚀 go-pugleaf

We have a similar service up here in Vancouver, BC.
Three "B-Line" bus routes operate along possible
future rapid transit corridors.  The routes 
operate 20 hrs/day, 7 days/week, using all
low-floor articulated buses.  The typical midday
headway is 5-10 minutes (depending on the route)
and 10-15 minutes in the evening.  One of the routes,
which serves the southern suburb of Richmond,
operates along dedicated bus lanes down the middle
of Richmond's main drag (somewhat like a streetcar
route), with landscaped islands/medians on either
side.  The shelters have digital displays indicating
when the next 2 buses will arrive, & buses can
send a signal to prolong a stale green light to
make it through without waiting for the next one.
All 3 routes are insanely popular.

Stefan Ewing

rrkap@yahoo.com (Ronald Kappesser) wrote in message news:<1bc609ad.0307151133.adbba8@posting.google.com>...
> As an addendum to the BRT discussion that happened on these groups a
> few days ago, I figured I would post an article from the San Francisco
> Chronicle about AC Transit's new bus line that is modeled on the L.A.
> Metro Rapid lines.  I do wonder if AC transit's express buses will be
> frequent enough along this route for headway based schedules to save
> people time.  12 minutes is a really long headway.
> 
> The original article, with pictures and a map is here:
> http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/15/BA184829.DTL
> 
> Introducing the speedy bus
> AC Transit project in East Bay aims to be subway alternative
> 
> Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, July 15, 2003
> 
> 
> Oakland -- A new breed of bus is rolling through the East Bay,
> threatening to change the way people ride what's always been seen as
> the plow horse of public transportation.
> 
> AC Transit's 72R line stands out not because of its shiny white paint
> job with green and red stripes, its oversized tinted windows or its
> European design, but because of the ambition behind it.
> 
> The idea is to speed up and modernize bus travel. No more stopping at
> every last street corner. No more lingering at stops to stick to a
> schedule. Less time sitting at red lights and bus stops.
> 
> Instead, AC's buses are scheduled to zip along the 16 miles of San
> Pablo Avenue, through middle- and working-class neighborhoods from San
> Pablo to Oakland, in 20 percent less time than the fastest buses that
> used to ply the route.
> 
> AC's project is one of two to three dozen being rolled out around the
> country as transit planners look for faster, cheaper ways of moving
> people than building light-rail or subway lines.
> 
> "It's a real change in bus psychology," said Jon Twichell, AC Transit
> planning manager and the of the rapid bus service. "This frees buses
> to just get up and go."
> 
> That's how it's worked in Los Angeles, where an experiment to cut the
> time buses idled at traffic lights, bus stops or in stalled traffic
> was such a success that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority
> expanded from its initial two lines to four. Plans are in the works to
> add two more lines every six months until 28 are operating.
> 
> "We had no idea it would work so well," said Rex Gephart, project
> manager for LA Metro Rapid.
> 
> Other Bay Area transit agencies are also looking at rapid-bus service.
> 
> The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority is gradually improving
> its 22 line along El Camino Real. San Francisco's Municipal Railway is
> studying the possibility of rapid-bus lines along Van Ness Avenue and
> Geary Boulevard. And AC Transit is considering an advanced version,
> with dedicated lanes and bus stations instead of stops, between
> Berkeley and San Leandro.
> 
> Anyone who's been stuck on a crowded bus in rush-hour traffic knows
> all too well the appeal of a speedier ride. Passengers are used to
> standing elbow-to- belly button, hanging onto overhead grab-bars, as
> the bus lurches through traffic, stopping at nearly every corner.
> 
> Rapid buses, on the other hand, stop only at major intersections. AC
> Transit's stops are an average of two-thirds of a mile apart.
> 
> Rapid bus service also eliminates the carefully choreographed
> timetables, the ones that force many bus drivers to sit and wait by
> the side of the road or cruise down the street slowly so as not to get
> ahead of schedule.
> 
> Instead, rapid buses start at a designated time, and drivers complete
> their routes as quickly as possible. Schedules simply designate the
> time buses leave their starting point and an estimated time they reach
> the end.
> 
> AC's rapid buses are running between Jack London Square in downtown
> Oakland and Contra Costa College in San Pablo every 12 minutes from 6
> a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays.
> 
> AC, which is in the midst of severe budget troubles, is betting big on
> the new service.
> 
> "The bottom line . . . is that the 20 percent running time reduction
> is imminently doable," Twichell said. AC's hope is that ridership on
> the line will increase 25 percent.
> 
> Although the San Pablo Rapid started service last month, some of its
> fanciest features have yet to be installed. Infrared devices in the
> windshields will send signals that will hold some green lights for
> rapid buses and make red lights turn green faster. Bus shelters,
> outfitted with digital signs that tell passengers when the next bus
> will arrive, will be installed in the next few weeks.
> 
> "We're working all summer to get everything running nicely," Twichell
> said. "Then, after Labor Day, when the kids return to school and
> people go back to work, we'll start the marketing campaign."
> 
> So far, riders seem to like the new rapid service, though they're
> still getting used to the changes.
> 
> "It was real fast," said Norman Johnson, a College of Alameda student
> and basketball player who caught the bus in Emeryville and rode it to
> downtown Oakland. "It's a big improvement."
> 
> Others took a more skeptical view.
> 
> "So this is the new rapid transit system," said one man who didn't
> want to give his name. "Most other cities get rapid transit on
> tracks."
> 
> AC Transit's program, which cost $4.5 million to put on the road, is
> modeled in part on Los Angeles' Metro Rapid, whose fire-engine red
> buses have transformed bus travel in a city whose transit system is
> more often ridiculed than copied.
> 
> Metro Rapid has cut travel times by 25 percent and boosted ridership
> by 40 percent.
> 
> Visit the busy intersection of Vermont Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard
> in the heat of a morning commute, and you'll forget you're in
> car-crazy L.A. Hundreds of riders pile off buses on one corner, scurry
> across a plaza and, with little or no wait, hop aboard other buses
> that zip off toward their destinations.
> 
> "To tell you the truth, I didn't think it was going to work when they
> first started it," said Ray Alcantar, a Metro supervisor whose job is
> to choreograph the flow of passengers and buses during the morning
> commute at Vermont and Wilshire. "But it works pretty well, and people
> really seem to like it."
> 
> Passengers say the buses have sped their travels and made the bus an
> alternative to driving.
> 
> "It's better service," said Ciro Mojica, a San Fernando Valley
> resident who rides to downtown. "It's a lot faster because you don't
> stop at every street."
> 
> Metro, Los Angeles's countywide transportation agency, started the
> experiment after a study found that Angelenos wouldn't ride buses
> because they were too slow. A subsequent study discovered that buses
> spent half their travel time stopped.
> 
> So in spring of 2000, Metro started running rapid buses on two lines
> -- along Wilshire, which stretches across the city, and on Ventura
> Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley.
> 
> The expense, said Gephart, was minor -- especially compared with light
> rail,
> 
> which costs $20 million to $30 million a mile to build, or subways,
> which cost $100 million to $300 million a mile. Los Angeles' rapid-bus
> system carries a price tag of $200,000 to $250,000 a mile, he said.
> 
> "It has a lot of impact," said Gephart. "For that kind of money, you
> can get speed and frequency for the public. It's great."
> 
> Metro Rapid has prompted visits from scores of U.S. transit agencies,
> including those in the Bay Area, eager to duplicate Los Angeles'
> unexpected success.
> 
> And while Gephart admits it's strange to have people visiting Los
> Angeles to learn about transit -- "we're not exactly known for our
> transit system," he says -- he realizes that Metro Rapid offers hope
> to other cities.
> 
> "If we can build a successful rapid bus system in L.A., where everyone
> loves cars," he said, "anybody can do it."