this is actually the sentence before the one you quoted above from the same posting, which seems to confirm what I am talking about.

“Certainly, there is no question that the Orange Line “BRT” is a major transit improvement in the corridor it serves (and, given applicable legal restrictions constraining LACMTA, a busway was effectively the agency’s only option for implementing a high-quality, rapid public transport service in the available former railway alignment).”

The post you cited also highlights that the big fight between LRT and BRT is not one of advocates or dollars and cents, but really an issue about how the transit agencies model and then measure ridership. LRT Now is right to call on more and improved measurement of LRT and BRT ridership so that transit agencies can best now when to deploy one tool or another.

Yes, yes it is, especially since the dedicated bus lanes will inevitably be less than promised – usually vanishing to nothing, in practice.

http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_brt_2006-08a.htm

“our analysis concludes that “the Orange Line busway’s ridership is approximately 24% lower than one would expect from a comparable LRT service in the same corridor.”"

I like rail too, and if I had a bazillion dollars, I would put a first-rate subway under every major street in LA, from the central city all the way out to the far suburbs and run trains on them every 5-10 minutes, 24 hours a day. But unfortunately I do not, and neither does LA County. Therefore, we’re looking for ways to maximize our existing infrastructure as best we can, while making wise investments to expand it where it makes the most sense.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of “BRT” in particular, but as the commentor above noted, if it had been proposed as LRT it would probably still be an idea as opposed to a reality. My vision, however, is clean-fuel, comfortable, modern “Rapid”-type buses (full implementation, not the half-ass version that Metro has been doing outside of Wilshire/Ventura) running on every major street in LA County, at 5-10 minute intervals, in exclusive lanes where needed, 24-hours a day, connecting with a skeletal network of rail lines tying it all together. Add in vastly improved bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and I think we’d be well on our way.

All of that with the exception of the big rail projects can be accomplished with investments in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. The problem with the rail is the scale of the investments (billions) is so much more that it can tend to gobble up all of the money. Is one mile of the Wilshire subway really worth the same as a billion dollars in bikeways, pedestrian improvements, and dedicated bus lanes? …

I don’t live in the Valley, but last year I rode the Orange line on a couple of weekdays and weekends at various times, and i saw a group of people from what I perceived to be diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds.

Yes technically LRT can be a better alternative, but not always. Most importantly most people who are not transportation buffs don’t care about what transit mode is employed, they care about getting where they want to conveniently and with regularity. As transportation professionals we need to start thinking or BRT, LRT, and subways as tools, not as the end goals. The point is to move people in groups not quible about how they move.

The biggest problem with LRT is that absolutely no surface rail line is going to be built in Southern California due to land prices, unless it is in an existing right of way. So that means that the lines are planned and built and then we all sit around and hope that origin and destination points will move to the line rather than evaluating where people are and building the connections they need. This is exactly the problem in transporation planning. LRT in Southern California is an excellent solution in search of the right problem, rather than the other way around.

And running more busses is NOT the same as running a multi-unit LRV. Each bus requires an operator, which is one reason buses are much more expensive to operate that LRVs. Multiple buses have have some reasonable separation, so to move the same amount of people as an LRV means much more linear space is required. But, the big killer is that more frequent bus operation blocks cross traffic on the roads that cross the busway at grade, assuming the buses have crossing priority. It the buses do not have priority, the whole system slows down and is no different than ordinary bus service.

There may be cases where BRT makes sense, but it never makes sense when high-capacity is needed. After spending all the money to build the Orange Line as a BRT busway, it will now have to be rebuilt for LRV operation. It should have been built that way in the first place.

It’s very silly to say that buses have limited capacity because you can double up an LRV. You can just as easily run buses in packs of two, three, or more.

Meanwhile the Gold Line light rail has about the same number of daily boardings on a route almost exactly as long as the Orange Line, but the Gold Line had double the capital costs. Which one of these could be considered a better investment?