[sustran] Re: Perceived railmarket in Asia + BRT in Europe

[Zvi Leve]

Karl Fjellstrom wrote:

>Zvi,
>In my view one of the most appealing things about BRT is that most new
>applications, including all of the Chinese BRT systems being developed, are
>median-aligned. 
>  
>
That's great! Unfortunately, I have never had the opportunity to 
actually experience a real functioning BRT system (there isn't one in 
Montreal, and I've never been to South America), so my comments are only 
based on my perceptions from reading about things. Another thing which 
comes across about BRT is that these systems (at least those which work 
well) do seem to be very well integrated with their urban environments. 
In North America there is not much of a culture of urban boulevards, so 
median alignments are more difficult to achieve.

I have only been to Shanghai in China, and I did not see any BRT there, 
although they may be planning some. In terms of bicycles being 'squeezed 
off of the road', scooters seem to be much more of a problem. It seems 
inevitable that increased motorization (be it personal vehicles or mass 
transit) follows rising income levels. But it would be a pity if 
countries which had high levels of non-motorized transport would 
completely shift away from that. There seems to be very little interest 
in higher-end bicycles....

On the rail versus BRT debate, Singapore is also an interesting example. 
Apparantly yhey were told that bus-oriented transit would be a much more 
efficient and less expensive solution, but the authorities strongly felt 
that they needed heavy rail in order to create the dense development 
patterns that they needed given their limited land area.

Zvi