[sustran] Re: More on Portland and metros-- adding Manila, Chicago

[Mark Potter]

on 11/11/01 10:21 AM, BruunB at aol.com at BruunB at aol.com wrote:

> Wendell,
> 
> I don't disagree that several parallel bus lanes (or LRT lines, for that
> matter) are better than one metro line, but how many cities will allow this
> much space? I support building many busways, but how many cities will? My
> point was that one might have to wait a long time.
> 
> One point that was not discussed. Once busways start moving large numbers of
> people, they can be very noisy and unpleasant, as the number of diesel
> vehicles gets very large.

Yes, indedd. It's important that something other than potential throughput
becomes part of thinking about transit-- like the impact on the quality of
the surrounding environment.
    

> I understand that some businesses are failing along
> one of the Sao Paolo busways. Thus, one must also limit the number of buses
> or jitneys in any one road.



An understatement. Even in Manila, a city whose residents it would seem
must be as innured to noise and pollution as any in the world, one can see
that in the most vital neighborhoods there, there are relatively few buses
compared to alternatives.  In Manila, however, the alternative in such
neighborhoods is not trams, but  the almost constant flow of jeepneys. In my
opinion, a much superior alternative to buses from the standpoint of
convenience for filling the gap between metro/rail and foot travel.


In the case of metros, quality and convenience of implementation is a
necessary consideration. In Manila,  a handicap is that the city  suffers
from must be one of the world's poorest implementations of mass rapid
transit on the planet.  Poor pedestrian access and station
placement/configuration.    I'd have to say though, that a strong "worst
implementation"  contender is the Red Line going south  along the Dan Ryan
in Chicago.   

In Chicago an instructive quality/convenience/use  comparison could be made
comparing the Red Line going north from the Loop versus the Red Line going
south-- radically different in convenience and people friendliness.  I don't
know about the relative ridership numbers for the north and southbound legs,
but the difference in station convenience and pleasantness is striking.

Mark L. Potter
millennium3
Fukuoka, Japan