Peter Rogoff says BRT as the more cost effective option
According to the Washington Examiner, Federal Transit Administration Administrator Peter Rogoff had some very candid comments for the top public transit officials in a May speech he delivered in Boston.
Noting that the future of public transportation in the U.S. is in jeopardy, he bluntly told attendees that solutions are not only about engineering and economics, but also about honesty and moral choices.
Pointing out that the future of public transportation in the U.S. is in jeopardy, Rogoff bluntly told attendees that solutions are not only about engineering and economics, but also about honesty and moral choices.
According to Hollingsworth, Rogoff says transit officials and local politicians need to be more honest with the public, especially about the high costs of rail versus bus transportation.
He says diehard rail riders will board a bus if it looks like it is something special, noting that it can be as simple as a bus painted differently than the rest of the fleet. With a designated bus lane with in signal preemption and agency cna move a lot of people at very little cost compared to rail, he says.
Hollingsworth was surprised to hear hear the head of FTA telling local officials to stop misleading the public about the costs of bus rapid transit versus heavy rail. She writes building and operating a BRT line costs about a tenth as much.
He noted American taxpayers are already saddled with $50 billion in unfunded capital maintenance by the nation’s seven largest rail operators. Rogoff believes communities deciding between bus and rail investments need to crunch the numbers
before they ask FTA for help in any further expansion.