Why Light Rail is better than Bus Rapid Transit

Oh my god, Winnipeg has zero public transit besides diesel buses with effectively no dedicated right of way, I never realized how stupid that is. On top of that, there are at-grade crossings for freight all over the city, and one of the railyards is even over 100 tracks wide, yet there’s only one passenger station and it’s for intercity.

In Portland, some of the light rail tracks run on the downtown streets, so that the trains have to deal with car traffic, somehow. This is a good and cool idea.

You showed the weird Adelaide brt

This video is reminding me of another one on BRT by RMTransit. I don't remember everything, but he made many of the same points. Basically, he said he thought BRT was good if it was BRT light. Which he basically described as bus routes with some elements of BRT to make them better, like designated bus lanes on at least some stretches of the journey, and not necessarily as heavily cordon off as some of one you showed. Then said it'd be better to use light rail on most of the more extreme BRT systems. For many of the same reasons as mentioned in this video. I interpreted this as if for what eve reason it makes more sense to use buses then right rail for a particular rout, then use BRT to make it a better bus route, because you are going to be using busses anyway so just make it better.

He forgot the most important point; light rail has the coolness factor

What about trolleybuses?

The main reason, of course, is that it allows more funds to flow to the well-connected politically--not physically.

Trolleybus rapid transit 🤔?

Who doesnt like trains?

Eged sucks, my grandpa tried to be and eged driver and he said the company is so corrupt he couldn't stand it

So what do you do when you want to change a route? When you have larger cars you spend much more time loading. BRT can also be electric too. All the things you say only light rail can do there are things BRT's are doing at much less cost.

Wrong, I like videos about conflicts and/or arguing, and this is arguments against something so I clicked on it.

One big advantage bus rapid transit seems to have over light rail is that when one unit is stalled, other units can just change lanes and go around it. Light rail seems to not be able to do that. If light rail can do that with two side-by-side lanes available, and there are always two side-by-side lanes available, which is for the purpose of going around stalled units, then that would be great and light rail would be great.

I’m from Winnipeg 😭

Anothrr example at least from the point of view of user, businesses and property developers is long term dependability. If a new manager at transit authority with busses decides they don't like a bus route changing it is almost just sticking bus stop markers elsewhere and giving drivers a new map and suddenly you direct buss commute needs two busses and a train (not that I would complain about a train).

With trams with actual tracks, once it is built you can be pretty sure there will be a tram at roughly that route for years upon years. Same with full scale trains.

Electric motors have a single moving part. The rotor.

Columbus, Ohio not even considering light rail baffles me to no end. A city of a million people should have more than buses as public transportation

BRT, 80 km/h vs lightrail 20 km /h... lightrail are slow af

Cities need to do more to encourage people to ride bicycles. Safe protected bike lanes and trails are needed so adults and children can ride safely. Speak up for bicycles in your community. Bicycles make life and cities better. Ask your local transportation planner and elected officials to support more protected bike lanes and trails. Children should be riding a bicycle to school and not be driven in a minivan.

Bicycles, ebikes, electric cargo bicycles, robo taxis and escooters are great options for last mile, short distance travel.
Reduced transportation costs and fossil fuels free transportation.
Cities need to do more to encourage people to ride bicycles by providing SAFE, PROTECTED BIKE LANES and trails. Every adult and child should own a bicycle and ride it regularly. Bicycles are healthy exercise and fossil fuels free transportation. Electric bicycles are bringing many older adults back to cycling. Ride to work, ride to school, ride for health or ride for fun. Children should be able to ride a bicycle to school without having to dodge cars and trucks. Separated and protected bike lanes are required. It will also make the roads safer for automobile drivers. Transportation planners and elected officials need to encourage people to walk, bike and take public transportation. Healthy exercise and fossil fuels free transportation. In the future cities will be redesigned for people not cars. Crazy big parking lots will be transformed with solar canopies generating free energy from the sun.

Walking, running, bicycles, escooters, green open spaces, electric buses and trams are all parts of a good transportation system

All these points against brt are moot when the brt uses electric busses.

Here in Indianapolis, we didn't have either one for a while...just traditional, slow bus service with frequent stops. We only built a real bus station downtown a few years ago.

After years of dragging their feet, the state legislature allowed us to have a referendum to improve our woeful transit system with a small income tax increase. But there was one caveat: we were expressly prohibited from using light rail. The referendum passed, and now we have bus rapid transit. One line is in service, one line is under construction, and a third line is in the planning and design phase.

It's not nearly sufficient to our city's transit needs, and we still have no transit access AT ALL outside of the city limits because none of the suburbs will even hold a referendum to allow voters to decide whether to participate in the system. But, I'll take improvements wherever I can get them.

true lrt better🚊🚋🚇

4. Idk what any of that means and I just want to hear someone talk about stuff

I clicked on the video because I enjoy trains and we need more public transit whether it be buses or trains personally I would like to see more trains trolleys and subways and interurban systems

The issue is cost. In many smaller cities and towns, rapid transit busses and bus ways are what can be financially justified. No objection to light rail. But busses could be electric there are no barriers to this. We should not be ashamed of lower cost.

Metro Manila: Why not both 😂 Light rail above and BRT below, but the traffic is still bad

I clicked the video because I don't know what the heck is the difference between tram, light rail and train.

I also never before heard about BRT and I concluded its garbage when you showed the first clip

If it’s not grade separated the it’s just a super expensive bus that can’t handle hills.

Cities and states are using BRT as a cop out for spending the $ on light rail. There is a place for it, but it infuriates me

I would like to see a video where you could analyze if brt and let routes could be interchangeable using an example of a city with a mostly brt system like the trans milenio system or maybe a smaller one like the RUTA found in Puebla

The entire thesis of Armchair Urbanist - "Our inner five year old boy and his love of trains is a better urban planner than the current system."

meanwhile bangkok “BRT” getting stuck on someone trying to u turn

now when is rutgers gonna implement this 🤔

I dont know anyone who disagrees with that. The biggest obstacle is just cost

Light Rail is always better imo

Ah Winnipeg, they couldn't make up their mind ran out of budget and half assed the hole thing. I do find it funny that there are sections of Winnipeg where they paved over the old trolley lines and just never got around to removing them, in the 60's.

Would light rail be more efficient than electric bus?

As someone from europe... the this BRT concept is new to me and it looks stupid AF. Like elon musks underground tunnel which is only driven by taxi tesla cars from on station to the other and back.

Ideally, it shouldn't be a competition. They really work better together. Light rail works best for main corridors in which you know that you are always going to be able to fill up a car, and people like the predictability of the rout. BRT gives you flexibility, allowing you to get places in which it is never going to be practical to build light rail because it isn't busy enough, because you would have to destroy something else to do so, or in which rail is unsafe. (Steel on steel may be better on fuel, but rubber on asphalt is always going to have better stopping distance and won't fly off the rails if an earthquake shifts the surface.) I know it is heresy to say so on a page devoted to public transport, but it similar to how interstates and surface streets network together. If I had to pick one (or one to start) I would still go with BRT because the biggest problem in public transport is getting people exactly where they want to go when they want to go there. (Which is the traditional advantage of cars over any public transport.) Busses will always be able to go more places and more often than a train system.

Im from london but i agree with the title since buses can get VERY packed half the time depending if u go to central or not

We all hate taking Busses

What about the (rubber wheel versions) of the Paris metro?

And one big advantage of rail-based systems is their comfort. Try reading or working on a computer on a bus, the constant movement from the much softer suspension makes that much harder, in particular in an articulated bus that also bends around an horizontal axis. This is especially noticeable when starting and stopping.

I believe that a city has to have varied ways of transporting you, it seems quite bad to me when a city focuses a lot on the car, other times public transport is exaggerated and meaningless, other times the person who uses a bicycle is forgotten, the movement It is super irritating for the one who walks etc etc.

I like when a city has good transportation by bus, cars can circulate calmly (obviously if it's a big city there will be heavy traffic, but if it's handled well there shouldn't be serious problems), it has a good subway system to connect with the different neighborhoods, commercial areas or different university buildings and there are areas where pedestrians can walk quietly, such as in my city where there is an area of 10 straight streets where only people can circulate, there is public transport nearby and finding parking is relatively easy and there is no need for large concrete parking lots the size of high-rise buildings.

Having cities centered around bikes, pedestrians, or cars like many cities in the US sucks to me, people have to have more possibilities

Some more numbers please. I believe brt Systems are significantly cheaper to build, but how much faster. We have some good brt Systems in the Netherlands, but lots more light rail.

Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding of "rolling resistance". 😮

australian heavy rail is good just as long as the system is well maintained (cough cough sydney)