Problems With BRT: Part 2 of…Many
Problem: Noise.
In our first post in this series, we featured a video that seemed to address the ‘noxious attitude’ of BRT, and of buses, in general. In this post, we want to highlight one aspect of that ‘noxious attitude’ - noise.
If you can stand it, watch this video once again:
There are some ways to address some of the incredible amount of noise that buses can produce - one of the most effective is using electrified buses - trolleybuses. San Francisco has this technology and infrastructure, and if we don’t have it, we can build it, I would think with relative ease. The East Bay folks, AC Transit, are talking about using hybrid-type buses which I suspect are quieter than normal buses, too.
We know a little bit about how dangerous traffic noise can be to the public health - regular buses are among the worst offenders. Let’s make sure the intense noise created by at least traditional buses are an impossibility.
Light rail systems are generally not noisy, except around some turns, depending on the particular technology used, etc.
Leave comment (2)[p.s. The Forums are open for participation.]
November 4th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Yeah, trolley buses would work. And you could add little metal guides to keep them going in predictable routes.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Here it is a year later and I’m just getting to see how you used our video to show the terrors of BRT. I just wanted to let you know the video was not contrived at any point. In fact the entire shoot took only about an hour, many times we didn’t even have to cut to the next bus. As a heads up, both metrojacksonville.com, and jacksonvilletransit.blogspot.com are chock full of articles blasting the BRT plans, including my personal storys from LIVING in COLOMBIA! Feel free to use any of our other videos, photos or articles, just give us a simple credit line. If we supporters of real transit don’t hang together the BRT lobby will hang us one by one.
RM