Raise the Hammer

In addition to excellent supportive planning policies, the BRT systems that delivered good development ROI ratios were those "Gold" level systems that were permanent, high quality systems. These systems involve very large capital investments, up to 1/2 that of LRT, and require special road surfaces, physical separation, dedicated signals, and LRT style platforms that allow travellers to pre-pay. This permanence is necessary to convince developers to investment, and this sort of high quality permanent infrastructure is not typical for most BRT systems.

But for Hamilton, the key point is that although the ratio of development money to money invested in the system can be higher for top level BRT, the total development dollars LRT attracts are still higher (higher NET benefit, which is what the Metrolinx study concluded). And the operating and lifecycle costs are far lower. LRT is also non-polluting at street level, quieter and higher capacity per vehicle. In Hamilton's particular case, the vast majority of direct costs would be paid by the province, the city would likely pay the operating and lifecycle costs, which makes LRT a much stronger choice.

And it has to be remembered that most of those musing about BRT, years after multiple studies on Hamilton's system directly compared BRT and LRT and concluded LRT would provide the highest net benefit, often don't really mean "Gold level BRT", they mean "not LRT", "cheaper" or "some more buses". I haven't heard anyone on council speak enthusiastically about BRT ... they only like it because it seems cheaper than LRT and less "disruptive" (if it is just a few more buses).

I imagine that most of those bringing up BRT would eventually object just as much to spending $200-400 million on a "disruptive" BRT system if it ever seemed like it might actually get built.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2014-03-03 16:16:32