Metro practices BRT on Powell - Will they get it right?

Metro is fast-tracking a BRT line on Powell Blvd.  it is being planned to go east on Powell, then north on 82nd Ave. before it heads east again on Dividion, then finally north to Mt. Hood Community College.  Unfortunately for those who use Powell and can't get to where they need to go on a limited BRT route, the BRT will remove one lane in each direction for exclusive use of the system, leaving only one in each direction for automobiles.  The entire light rail/streetcar system to date has left the regular bus system in shreds so cars have been increasingly the default form of transit for years.   If the objective is to improve transit for the most people and to get people to use mass transit rather than cars, there are other, cheaper solutions that won't just rob riders from one bus line and out them on another.

Bus line gives Metro chance to get it right

The Portland Tribune Thursday, January 23, 2014  - Editorial

Excerpts:

If planners have their way, a new transit line linking inner Southeast Portland and east Multnomah County could be in the design process as early as next year and under construction by 2018.

For those who are unfamiliar with BRT, this isn’t your father’s bus service. Instead of a bus system that moves people, but succeeds in slowing down other traffic, a BRT system has a dedicated lane of travel so that it doesn’t interfere with existing traffic flow. BRT systems also typically feature off-board fare collection and street-level platforms, and they have priority at intersections. In many ways, it’s a light-rail system without the train.

This may prove to be the most expeditious route, but it doesn’t address the most glaring problems in east Multnomah County. If ever there was a location in need of revitalization, Powell Boulevard certainly makes the cut. Yet the truly blighted areas on Powell are east of 82nd Avenue — beyond where the planned BRT line would divert to the north.

If the engineering can be worked out, it might make more sense to run the BRT line farther east on Powell before making the cut north to Division. In the process, the new BRT line would add some much-needed economic stimulus to an area of Portland that desperately needs it.

Economic growth takes up-front investment. Southeast and East Portland has seen increased crime and homelessness. It has not enjoyed the same level of economic recovery experienced in the rest of the city.  BRT can have a positive influence, but it has to be done correctly with dedicated lanes, attractive stations and other permanent features that give developers confidence that the line is here to stay.

The above article compares BRT to "a light-rail system without the train." Below is a research report giving an unbiased view of the benefits of light rail and, most likely, BRT. The solution to transportation problems just might be the common bus - restoring Trimet service of the past to more frequent service, more routes, and extended hours.  The economic benefits to q BRT and economic development may be illusory as the benefits are shifted from taxpayers to developers and landowners with property close to transit.  Gentrification too, can be detrimental to those of little means. Keep reading. ,

John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy  "The Streetcar Scam":

The rail lines were so expensive that [Pprtland's] transit agency was forced to cut bus service, resulting in a significant drop in transit’s share of travel. In 1980, before building any rail, 9.8 percent of Portland-area commuters took transit to work. By 2010, this had fallen to just 7.1 percent.11   

Peter Rogoff, the head of the Federal Transit Administration, thinks too many cities are wasting taxpayers’ money on rail transit. “Paint is cheap; rails systems are extremely expensive,” Rogoff said in 2010. “You can entice even diehard rail riders onto a bus, if you call it a ‘special’ bus and just paint it a different color than the rest of the fleet.”

Eugene Oregon, 100 miles south of Portland, proved this by painting the buses used on one route bright green and calling the route the “EMX.” The buses saved riders no more than one minute per four-mile trip, yet more than 60 percent of the riders surveyed think they saved much more. The mere image of a fast bus more than doubled the route’s ridership. 

Even to the extent that a streetcar, by itself, can enhance the value of nearby properties, it is likely that such an enhancement is at the expense of other property owners in the region. Researchers have repeatedly shown that the use of government subsidies to improve one district or neighborhood have zero net benefits for an urban area as a whole.16 Some research even shows that cities that subsidize economic development actually grow slower than those that don’t.17 Thus, rather than being a genuine social benefit, any increase in property values due to a streetcar are merely a transfer of wealth from property owners away from the streetcar to those nearby.

For rail transit in particular, research has found that rail’s effect on economic development is also a zero-sum game. Rail transit does not lead urban areas to grow faster; instead, at most it shuffles growth around from one part of an urban area to another.18 

Transportation projects only truly produce economic growth when they provide transportation that is less expensive, faster, and/or more convenient than what was previously available. Such projects result in new travel that would not have otherwise taken place, and that travel produces economic benefits such as more productive workers, lower-cost consumer goods, and access to better housing.