Why bus rapid transit has stalled in Bay Area [View all]

from the San Francisco Chronicle:


SAN FRANCISCO -- Bus rapid transit was supposed to be the future of public transportation.

A technology combining more efficient buses and relatively simple improvements to streets, BRT, as it's known, has been heralded as a fairly cheap high-capacity transit system - a subway on tires - that can be put on the streets quickly.

But in the Bay Area, the introduction of bus rapid transit is advancing at a pace akin to that of a Muni bus stuck in rush-hour traffic. More than a dozen years after the region started talking about the speedy buses, the Bay Area is still waiting for its first one.

Bus rapid transit projects in San Francisco, the East Bay and the South Bay are still in the works, but they have stalled after running into community skepticism and opposition to the removal of traffic lanes and parking spaces. The opposition from merchants and residents has caused some cities, even progressive bastions like Berkeley, to refuse to allow transit-only lanes or to drop out of BRT projects altogether. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Why-bus-rapid-transit-has-stalled-in-Bay-Area-5461409.php