http://www.smartgrowthforconservatives.com/2014/02/27/the-acid-test-for-richmond-brt-will-property-owners-tax-themselves/ Fiscal and market perspectives on transportation and land use Sat, 05 Sep 2015 11:29:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.8 http://www.smartgrowthforconservatives.com/2014/02/27/the-acid-test-for-richmond-brt-will-property-owners-tax-themselves/#comment-2288 Sun, 12 Jul 2015 16:05:37 +0000 http://www.smartgrowthforconservatives.com/?p=513#comment-2288 And the other downside of BRT: the real cost of construction vs productivity. Buses have an extremely high axle weight and cause tremendously fast wear to the road surface. To counter this the roads can be dug down, utilities moved and the sub-roadbed heavily reinforced to take the repeated load of frequent buses. BRT built as BRT, on its own right of way, costs as much as equivalent light rail. The advantage, according to Cleveland, is that most of the work is done now, and it won’t be too expensive to convert to rail when the bus line reaches capacity.
Beyond the high cost of maintenance of the road surface, there’s the cost of operation. The bus has limited capacity, and when the bus is full you either add a bus and driver or turn the extra people away.
Light rail has significantly higher capacity per driver and can add cars to the train without adding personnel.
Also, buses are finished and have to be scrapped after 8 to 12 years. Train cars have an expected life of 30 years and are usually in good enough condition to resell to another authority at the end of their service.

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