Got that? When referring to bus rapid transit (BRT) buses, you should refrain from calling them ‘buses’, because that would be too truthful. Instead, call them ‘vehicles’.
I had read this in several places, but I was reminded of it when I stumbled upon an old post by Streetsblog Network blog Xing Columbus:
On the outside, Euclid [...]
Over the past couple of months I’ve taken a liking to bashing the fraud known as BRT - bus rapid transit. This led me to investigate more about the world of motorized transport. Blah.
I was never very far from the bike world, though, because I was riding my bike several days a week, if not [...]
I’ve been trying to make the case that people don’t ride the bus unless they absolutely have to — it’s that terrible an experience. Most people who grow to tolerate and even ‘love’ it, do so because they’ve learned to accept the circumstances of their lives. Like a bad lover, a bad job, a bad [...]
Not.
Kids are young, and sometimes naive, but they’re not stupid. They know when you’re trying to pull a fast one on them. If they ask for a train set, you’d better not come home with a BRT set and say, “But honey - it’s just like a train!”
That ain’t gonna fly, and your holiday will [...]
Streetsblog San Francisco is one step closer. And presumably, so too is San Francisco BRT.
My enthusiasm for Streetsblog over the past couple of months has been greatly tempered by my distaste for BRT. Streetsblog is probably the strongest proponent of BRT that I know of. As an organization, their love of bus rapid transit is [...]
Whether walking, or biking, or taking transit - one’s journey should be pleasant. It should be enjoyable. It must, at a minimum, be dignified — but really, it should strive to be much more than just dignified.
This is why bus travel must not be tolerated any longer — it is not even dignified, much less [...]
In the ridiculous ongoing battle of BRT vs. LRT (as if there is any comparison), I believe it would be useful if we came up with some helpful buzz phrases that state our position clearly.
To that end I want to resurrect something a BRT skeptic told me once:
You get what you pay for.
It’s a common [...]
For the few other folks out there in the blogosphere who are potentially somewhat skeptical of BRT, most seem to be open to the idea that BRT can exist - that it should be allowed to occupy real space in the continuum of serious transportation ideas - that it should be treated respectfully as a [...]
Every time I see the acronym ‘BRT’ in print, I think of the phrase a friend of mine would use when referring to some half-baked scheme to half-fix a problem:
You can paint a turd gold, but it’s still a turd.
Think of it as you would the ‘lipstick on a pig‘ expression:
To put “lipstick on a [...]
The Chicagoland Bicycle Federation (http://www.biketraffic.org/) has changed its name to the Active Transportation Alliance (http://activetrans.org/). I’d been tipped a couple of weeks ago that this was going to happen, but I wasn’t sure when. Apparently an announcement was made at a general members meeting last night.
In general, I agree with this step - sort of [...]
