stldotage wrote:StlAlex wrote: ↑4:42 PM - Apr 29
stldotage wrote:I guess we'll know more after the open house(s) on the project next week, but:
If the BRT "product" is dedicated right-of-way, raised platforms with pre-boarding payment, real-time arrival signage, traffic signalization priority, etc...then how would that only be 10 percent of the product? It's been described as Metrolink with rubber tires and the price tag would suggest they're not skimping.
Btw, this is not a snarky ask -- I'm legitimately wanting to hear it articulated. I realize the psychological benefits of rail versus bus but it's not as if the city is going to abandon all of this expensive BRT-specific infrastructure either.
Basically the argument is that all that pretty infrastructure is useless unless it meaningfully increases the liveability of the city and attracts real ridership growth, in addition to the economic benefits of TOD. I'm talking about people who actively choose to forgoe their car in favor of riding the new bus. There is scant evidence of many BRTs doing this, and none of the BRTs they have as examples on the website.
The best comparison is probably IndyGo's Red and Purple Lines, which were both build through city streets and are one of the examples of BRT on the Green Line's website. The problem is that each line has roughly the same ridership as the 70 Grand. It's pretty and Indy can tout transit expansion, but in reality it's comparable to the worst LRT lines or with the 70, a regular high frequency bus line.
Consider, IndyGo opened the Purple Line in Oct 2024, so 2025 was their first full year where it was operating. Their overall ridership dropped by 4.3% in 2025 despite a $188 million piece of new infrastructure opening. So this begs the question what was the point of it? I personally do not think hundreds of millions of dollars is worth it unless we are actually making a difference.
You can maybe make a comparison to the Health Line in Cleveland, but that line hits multiple hospitals in addition to downtown, would have done better as an LRT.
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Thanks for the response. My next question based on your first sentence/paragraph is, then, why would a light rail line attract riders while a bus line wouldn't? With the IndyGo example, we don't have a rail versus bus comparison to make since rail was never built. Couldn't it be possible that light rail would have had similar demand?
I think if we demand a BRT "product", to borrow that term from WayoftheArch, that is substantially similar in quality/aesthetics/function to a rail line, then what exact benefit are we missing?
I must admit I say this in part because some of the bus-aversion strikes me as catering to racist/classist people that aren't reliable transit riders to begin with. As a bus rider/user myself, I DO understand the aversion to busses in the sense of not knowing where they run / how to pay / if they're going to show up -- but again, literally all of those elements should be addressed by standard BRT features. Basically each BRT station should look pretty identical to what a MetroLink Green Line light rail station would have looked like, minus the rails.
I have an urban planning background so I'm well aware that rail is the preferred and psychologically more beneficial form of transit in dense, population and job-heavy environments--and to facilitate economic development and future ridership. Those arguments aren't lost on me...I'm just not certain rail transit has the same cachet in a mid-sized, mid-density city that makes it worth the extra money and presumed extra benefits.
I feel like there's ample examples of LRT, and even streetcars, that have exceeded IndyGo's BRT ridership. When I lived in Indy, I would always hear about how Cincinnati (they apparently have a rivalry) spent about as much on their streetcar as IndyGo spent on the Red Line. The problem with this comparison is that the Cincinnati Connector actually has slightly higher ridership than the Red Line. Now, I think both are mediocre, but the point is that the little 3.6 mile streetcar manages similar ridership to the big 13+ mile Red Line.
I think there's a strong argument that making the inner core of your city more liveable and transit oriented is better than running a fancy bus through low density suburbs, like where some of the Red Line runs. So an equivalent might be arguing that an LRT from Lafayette Square to Old North could be a better investment than a BRT from Chippewa to Natural Bridge.
To get what you're describing would still cost a lot of money in addition to the less than ideal longer term operating costs per rider. Minneapolis spent $505 million on a fully grade separated BRT, the Gold Line, and it has less than 2,000 daily riders in its first year of operation. Reality is people don't ride buses enough to justify spending hundreds of millions on them, whether we like it or not.
If the option was:
11 mile Indy-style BRT from Chippewa to the city-county line on Natural Bridge for $425 million and 3,000 riders per day
OR
5.7 mile Pheonix-style LRT from Chippewa, through Lafayette Square, through Downtown West (further east than Jefferson) then terminating somewhere in Old North for $1.1 billion and 5,000 riders per day
Which would you choose? We are assuming the feds fund either one in 2029.
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