[sustran] Re: Bus and rail (fwd)

[Alan P Howes]

Do I hear a conspiracy theorist?

I would be interested to hear of these places where Craig considers
that busways are a trojan horse for more road provision. From all I
understand, this is not the case in Europe, or in North or South
America, and would not be here in Dubai either - assuming we ever got
any busway built. 

His points about costs of capital _may_ be fair, and I certainly agree
that capital costs should be compared on a like-for-like basis, wrt
elevated, at-grade etc.

I did not really mean that the busway infrastructure can be picked up
and used elsewhere - but the buses certainly can, and they can easily
use part of the existing busway plus street running where appropriate.
The ability to operate off the busway onto the ordinary street system
is a big bus way advantage.


On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 10:06:31 +0800, Craig Townsend
<townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au> wrote to
sustran-discuss at jca.ax.apc.org:

>Not including externalities and long term costs and benefits of operations, 
>there are additional benefits to construction of rail. Supply of E & M 
>equipment and steel contribute toward heavy industrialization and the 
>provision of high skill, well paid jobs, and technological spin-offs: this 
>has been done in Japan and more recently in Korea. The benefits are such 
>that industrialized nations are willing to offer loans on very favourable 
>terms in order to build rail systems in industrializing nations. Bangkok's 
>subway is under construction with a loan from the Japan Bank for 
>International Cooperation (formerly OECF) with an interest rate of 0.75% 
>for 40 years and a 10 year grace period. I would be interested to know how 
>the costs of capital for construction differ between rail and busway.
>
>Some of the comparisons being made appear to be between at-grade busways 
>and elevated rail. I would suggest that this is an inappropriate comparison 
>unless the rights of way required are really that different. How do the 
>rights of way compare between busway systems in operation versus LRT 
>systems in operation?
>
>I too don't like getting into discussions pitting one form of transit 
>aganist another. As Lloyd suggests, the way around this is to state the 
>values and objectives and then choose appropriate means of working toward 
>those objectives. Thus, busways should be supported if they are part of a 
>package of measures supporting public transport and non-motorized 
>transport. However, they are being used as a "trojan horse" to make massive 
>road building more politically palatable in some places. My concern for the 
>enthusiasm over urban busways is not that they perform poorly, but that 
>they are promoted as a means of facilitating an eventual shift to a road 
>based, private, and motorized transport system. (I should have stated that 
>assumption explicitly in my previous message.) Alan suggests that busways 
>can be "picked up" and moved: I doubt that, but I would be interested to 
>hear of specific cases. I suspect that they will be converted into road 
>space for private vehicles in the future, which is why those of us 
>concerned about sustainable transport should be wary of them in the first 
>place!

-- 
Alan Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland)
alaninthegulf at yahoo.co.uk
Professional website   (Needs Updating!): 
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/