Nice piece in the NYT on BRT in Bogota and the opportunity BRT presents for the developing world. A cautionary note to BRT proponents here in the US: doing it right requires a staggering amount of right-of-way:
But with its wide streets, dense population and a tradition of bus travel, Bogotá had the ingredients for success. To create TransMilenio, the city commandeered two to four traffic lanes in the middle of major boulevards, isolating them with low walls to create the systems so-called tracks. On the center islands that divide many of Bogotás two-way streets, the city built dozens of distinctive metal-and-glass stations.
Another NYT piece in which the hairs on the back of my neck automatically rise when I see them making a straw man comparison. Why compare buses to subways? Thats about like comparing ultra-lights to the space shuttle, and concluding that ultra-lights are a good way to fly across the US.
Given all the powers used by the Bogota BRT, a light rail system could have been built that would have paid for infrastructure with operating economy. With all those mountains Colombia must be a good candidate for hydro electric development.
But building dams or light rail systems takes money, and the IMF doesn’t fund rail in developing countries. And here’s where it gets even ‘curiouser’- shouldn’t Colombia have lots of money, considering all of those cocaine exports? Ha ha, the money of course goes to druglords who buy land, forcing now-landless peasants to move to the cities, resulting in explosive urban growth, not just in Colombia but throughout the third world, in most of which it is not cocaine but some other commodity which displaces the peasantry.
Ok, that’s all just elementary sociology, demography, economics, and current events. But it’s more than you got from the NYT with their subway-bus comparison, and it gives some tools to understand how an agency with the powers of the Bogota BRT can still be unable to lay rail and hang wire. They’re lucky to live next to Venezuela and the oil.
Bonus irony- Bush actually did bring democracy to a country- Venezuela. If our troops hadn’t been mired in Iraq, something would have happened to Venezuela for sure. That Bush, he’s a decider!
Seoul South Korea has a BRT system like this too which compliments their extensive subway system.
IETT has established a BRT line between Europe and Asia that is capable of carrying 300,000 passengers per day. I saw a presentation on this and the buses depart the ends of the line in groups of two or three. An interesting concept. Oh – and it has its own dedicated lanes with the exception of one part – and that is over the bridge between the European side of Istanbul and the Asian side of Istanbul.
http://www.iett.gov.tr/en/section.php?sid=63
Ouch. Traffic in that area is awful. I’ve been stuck on that short bridge for half an hour. Too bad they don’t get their own lane.