background on light rail vs bus rapid transit

Note: Revised to expand the section on San Francisco’s Van Ness BRT. There are certainly other BRT routes in California and other places where one may experience BRT, or close to BRT, but Van Ness is the nearest one. Go there! Ride there! Also added is more information on BRT planning in Sacramento.

San Francisco’s Van Ness BRT

If you have not used Van Ness BRT or another BRT system, STAR strongly recommends that you do. BRT, or BRT-light at least, is coming to Sacramento, and public understanding and support is key to it being successful. SFMTA’s Muni Van Ness Improvement Project page has a lot more detail.

SFMTA Muni (the transit part of the transportation agency) claims this for Van Ness:

  1. Dedicated transit lanes that are physically separated from the other traffic lanes, for use by Muni and Golden Gate Transit buses only.
  2. Enhanced traffic signals optimized for north-south travel with Transit Signal Priority, which gives buses the green light as they approach an intersection.
  3. Low-floor vehicles and all-door boarding, that make it quicker and easier for passengers to load and unload at each stop.
  4. Safety enhancements for people walking like sidewalk extensions, median refuges, high visibility crosswalks and audible countdown signals.
  5. Fully furnished boarding platforms that include shelters, seating and NextMuni prediction displays located at key transfer points.

Though Muni claims signal prioritization, my own experience of using the bus route is that the buses spend significant time waiting at signals, so either it was not completely implemented, or needs improvement. Most of the Muni bus 49 route is BRT, but the north end, from Lombard to Bay Street, is not. This indicates that BRT is valuable even if not an entire route is BRT. Golden Gate Transit buses also use the BRT. The reason the Van Ness project took 19 years from conception to completion is not due to the BRT features, but to the utility work that required almost complete replacement of all utilities in the corridor.

photo of BRT on Van Ness Ave in San Francisco
BRT on Van Ness Ave in San Francisco

BRT in Sacramento

Sacramento does not have BRT. SacRT’s study of potential BRT routes in its service area is High Capacity Bus Service. It identified Arden Way, Florin Road, Stockton Blvd, Sunrise Blvd, and Watt Avenue as potential routes, and discarded other routes or potions of routes. Stockton was identified as the top priority, due in part to the City of Sacramento’s interest in and commitment to this route, and therefore not analyzed in detail in this study, but in a separate process. Truxel Road/Natomas Blvd was not included in this study, as it was assumed that there would be light rail on this alignment.

The Stockton Blvd Corridor Plan (2021) identified some BRT features for Stockton, but following that plan the city and SacRT agreed to design something closer to true BRT, so SacRT is leading the Stockton Boulevard Implementation Plan effort. Note that the Public Review Draft Stockton Blvd Plan is a much more expansive document that includes transportation but is more oriented to community and economic development.

No one in the Sacramento region has proposed ‘true BRT’ that meets the high Gold Standard of ITDP (Institute for Transportation & Development Policy). The ITDP BRT Scorecard is available, and is quite comprehensive. SacRT prefers using the term ‘high capacity bus service’, though BRT is commonly used in discussions in the Sacramento region. The term ‘BRT-light’ is often used to refer to implementation of some but not all of true BRT features. Though implementing all the features is key to obtaining all the benefits, any of the features will lead to more effective bus service. It is also true that SacRT light rail modernization project does not meet the highest standards for light rail either, as SacRT adopted low floor boarding rather than level boarding, which is the modern industry standard.

SacRT map of potential BRT routes
SacRT map of potential BRT routes

Background

Below are a selection of sources on the question of light rail versus bus rapid transit (BRT). This is background information, in case you are needing it, in preparation for the next blog post about the local issue of Green Line light rail versus bus rapid transit. If you search for ‘lrt vs brt’ or ‘light rail vs bus rapid transit’, you will find hundreds of articles. Many are simply opinion pieces, by people who don’t have any expertise in transit. Others are about issues in specific places and along specific routes, which are interesting, but not necessarily relevant to Sacramento region. Note that many of these are older. It seems as though the light rail vs bus rapid transit wars have died down a bit. They each have advantages and disadvantages, with context being critical to determining which is best.

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