The Case Against BRT — Melbourne, Australia
Since it was Streetfilms that helped us get into this fine BRT mess, it is only appropriate that Streetfilms helps to get us out.
In response to the Streetfilms video on BRT in Bogota, Columbia (that has, apparently, helped inspire so much unthinking adoration), I give you the Streetfilms video on the ‘Pedestrian Paradise’ that is Melbourne, Australia - please note the number of BRTs you see in the video:
OK - if you took a sip for every time you saw a bus, you’d be….completely sober right now.
There is no way that Melbourne is every going to allow massive buses to invade and destroy their city. Not a chance. They may allow a bus here and there, sparingly, but the vast majority of transit in the core areas of downtown will be walking, biking, and light-rail - not buses, and certainly not BRT.
Melbourne, Australia was just ranked the 9th Most Livable City In The World by Monocle Magazine. And just maybe they deserve it. Check out how permeable some of those streets are. Those light rail cars/trams are just awesome.
Check out this cool graphic from that same magazine - notice how many buses you see:
This is not a conspiracy - people really really like rail. People really really don’t feel strongly about buses - well, actually many people hate them. We’re told that the people of Bogota are in love with their Transmilenio BRT, but have we heard the full story? Probably not. An astute reader will note that the pickpocket problem is a direct result of the limited capacity of BRT systems compared to LRT. If you want a big, ugly, throw-away system for a suburban environment that will last ten or fifteen years and you will only need it to move less than 5,000 people per hour, then BRT might be for you. If any one of those conditions is not true, and especially if you need to move closer to 10,000 people per hour, then LRT is the way to go. As the Transmilenio system is painfully experiencing, a BRT system will absolutely choke under heavy load.
The most obvious difference you’ll notice between the two videos is that most of the Bogota/BRT action takes place on what appears to be a highway, with dedicated bus lanes in addition to the seemingly-unending number of regular automobile traffic lanes. That ‘highway’ is completely impenetrable by pedestrians and bikes. The Melbourne/LRT action, on the other hand, takes place in a dense urban environment than sometimes reminds one of downtown San Francisco. Pedestrians and bicyclists are everywhere, and they meander around the streets seemingly without a care in the world.
There is no intentional deception in the videos. What has happened, instead, is that opportunist BRT proponents have seized upon the the excitement generated by Bogota’s BRT system and tried - for various reasons - to squeeze BRT into where it clearly does not belong - dense, urban environments. There may well be a place for buses and even BRTs, but that place is not where residents care about maintaining or even increasing the vitality and livability of the places they live, work, play, travel, and/or just hang out.
Bay Area residents have a choice to make - do you want San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro to mimic, and maybe even someday surpass the vitality and livability of the greatest cities in the world, or do you want to mimic the most troubled cities in the world, condemning our own cities and towns to mediocrity for the next hundred years?
The choice is largely up to us.
Leave comment (4)[p.s. The Forums are open for participation.]
November 4th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Of course a cyclist was recently killed by a tourist coach in central Melbourne.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I’m a Melbournite now living in San Francisco. Cycling is certainly more accepted in San Francisco, and the rail network in Melbourne is heavily under-invested in, and at least two decades behind its demand. The city is centralised (you’re only seeing the CBD, which is fantastic, the laneways and arcades make this one of the world’s great places), and there is a very large suburban area.
I love Melbourne, but San Francisco is not doing so badly. The weird chatter about “no buses” from the authors of this article is wrong! There are _certainly_ buses in Melbourne, though fortunately we have retained our (heavily, heavily over strained) tram network (most other Australian cities decomissioned theirs in the 1950s. Yes, Australia embraced and still embraces the car just like America does outside of SF and NYC). Buses are very common in the suburbs because the rail lines all radiate from central Melbourne, and there’s no way to get across town without using multiple trains/trams or just a single bus.
Anyhow, I’m all for people travelling to Melbourne and enjoying it. It’s a great city, and there’s a lot to like. But please, don’t bullshit me about my home town and sugarcoat things.
Cheers!
November 5th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Thanks for the tip, Asphodel.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I don’t think you disagreed with anything I said, Andreux - therefore, I did not ‘bullshit you’, nor anyone else. I’ve been to Melbourne and ridden the trams and walked the streets, and I took a bus there from Sydney. I know there are buses there, but they are not allowed to dominate the core of the city. If you disagree with something I’ve written, please just point it out.