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<\/a>\nConstruction on the Mid-City Rapid bus line begins at El Cajon Boulevard and Fairmount Avenue in City Heights. | Photo Credit: Megan Burks<\/span><\/p>\n
By Andrew Keatts<\/span> San Diego\u2019s mid-city neighborhoods are getting a new, faster bus service<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n The idea was to create a bus line that mimicked the trolley, but cost a fraction of the price.<\/p>\n But the mid-city project is much less ambitious than when it was originally conceived. Now that it\u2019s been scaled down, it\u2019s lost a lot of the very elements meant to make it attractive.<\/p>\n \u201cBus rapid transit\u201d (or BRT) has been a trendy planning solution for years, used in the U.S. and around the world to provide high-end transit at a discounted price. But SANDAG, the regional transportation planning agency, made concessions on some key elements when putting together its network connecting downtown, Escondido, South Bay, mid-city and the Golden Triangle \u2013 particularly on the mid-city line that connects SDSU to downtown.<\/p>\n How the Mid-City Rapid Got Slowed Down<\/strong><\/p>\n The concept of a fast and convenient bus that would lure new riders in the mid-city area began about 10 years ago<\/a>, as the Showcase Bus Rapid Transit.<\/p>\n It would have had lanes dedicated exclusively to the new buses and cyclists on El Cajon Boulevard and Park Boulevard, bypassing street traffic. And it would have ticket vending machines that would have allowed riders to pay before boarding, speeding up the process by freeing drivers from transactions and letting riders use both doors.<\/p>\n That was in 2005, but SANDAG suspended the project following opposition from resident groups and businesses along El Cajon Boulevard, who didn\u2019t like the idea of eliminating a lane of traffic.<\/p>\n The El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association surveyed local businesses<\/a> and found 74 percent didn\u2019t want to surrender a traffic lane.<\/p>\n \u201cBack then, the business community and others were concerned about taking a lane,\u201d said Gary Gallegos, executive director of SANDAG. \u201cAt the end of the day, it wasn\u2019t an easy decision and many (SANDAG) board members said, \u2018Let\u2019s not give up.\u2019 It speaks to how hard it is to plan for things once you impact the urban communities.\u201d<\/p>\n The current project\u2019s 2008 environmental review<\/a> says \u201cdedicating lanes for transit on El Cajon Boulevard and Park Boulevard through Balboa Park could be considered at some future time.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, SANDAG\u2019s more focused on developing the line into a light rail around 2035. It\u2019s one of four new light rail lines<\/a> in SANDAG\u2019s long-term transportation plan<\/a> (which lost a legal challenge<\/a> and is now under appeal), and Gallegos said SANDAG\u2019s beginning to spend money to figure out \u201chow to make (light rail) happen sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n Stephen Russell, an architect, was executive director of the El Cajon BIA who later worked in Councilwoman Toni Atkins\u2019 office when she represented the mid-city area. He said the project didn\u2019t have the support it needed.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was a shame that it got dumbed down, but it\u2019s hard to hoist changes onto a community when you don\u2019t have a constituency that\u2019s participatory,\u201d he said. \u201cThe people who are most loud simply don\u2019t use the system, and don\u2019t see it as relevant to their lifestyle. There are class issues in that. I heard businesses who didn\u2019t want \u2018bus people\u2019 there.\u201d<\/p>\n Russell supports the current project even though he wishes it had the more beefed-up features. He thinks it will attract a new ridership that will become a vocal constituency for improved transit.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to see an incredible amount of activity, you\u2019ll see more dense housing, and that will change the makeup of the electorate there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Initial cost projections of the line with dedicated lanes were $50 million, the Union-Tribune reported in 2003. That\u2019s pretty close to the final cost of the current project, which came in at $44 million.<\/p>\n SANDAG\u2019s ridership projections for the new line predict a 27 percent to 63 percent increase over the existing local bus service.<\/p>\n The mid-city line is expected to draw 7,000 to 9,000 daily riders by the end of its first year, according to SANDAG. The actual daily ridership of the 15 bus \u2014 the local line that runs more or less the same route \u2014 is 5,503 on average, according to the Metropolitan Transit System, which operates the service.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ridership projections look good; I think they can get there right away,\u201d said Bruce Appleyard, an SDSU professor of planning and transportation. \u201cAnd if they do, they can start upgrading the project based on that ridership.\u201d<\/p>\n When Does a Bus Become Bus Rapid Transit?<\/strong><\/p>\n There isn\u2019t a universal definition of bus rapid transit.<\/p>\n In fact, there\u2019s a pretty heated debate over what gets to don that label.<\/p>\n One school of thought<\/a>, championed by the National Bus Rapid Transit Institute, a federally funded group operating out of the University of South Florida, takes a pretty straightforward view<\/a>: BRT is transit on rubber wheels that increases ridership at a low cost. It doesn\u2019t need dedicated lanes, and its strength is that it can be changed to fit a local environment.<\/p>\n \u201cI think of it as a significant improvement over a bus, but not necessarily involving an exclusive lane,\u201d said Dennis Hinebaugh, director of the National BRT Institute. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to throw out an option that everyone can implement.\u201d<\/p>\n Most miles of BRT in America don\u2019t have a dedicated lane, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI try not to look at it that if you don\u2019t have a dedicated lane, it\u2019s a negative, and rather that if you do have a dedicate lane, that\u2019s a positive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the other school of thought: There must be a clear distinction between bus rapid transit and typical city buses.<\/p>\n The Institute for Transportation & Development Policy, an international nonprofit, established what it calls The BRT Standard, which says bus rapid transit has four essential elements: dedicated lanes, pre-boarding payment, bus priority at intersections and platform-level boarding.<\/p>\n There\u2019s wiggle room within each category \u2014 for instance, a lane that\u2019s simply marked for buses, versus separated and elevated busways \u2014 but some commitment to each is non-negotiable.<\/p>\n \u201cA project that doesn\u2019t meet our basic qualifications is not a BRT project,\u201d said Annie Weinstock, U.S. program director for ITDP. \u201cWe would consider it an enhanced bus project, which may have certain benefits above existing service, but it shouldn\u2019t be considered BRT.\u201d<\/p>\n Weinstock said pre-board payment, which the mid-city line also doesn\u2019t have, is the second-most important element behind dedicated lanes.<\/p>\n Using BRT to describe glorified buses, Weinstock said, creates local opposition to transit projects on the basis that they aren\u2019t light rail, a criticism that\u2019s been levied against San Diego\u2019s new projects.<\/p>\n \u201cOne reason people are focused on light rail and not BRT is because they haven\u2019t seen true BRT,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n There are five U.S. cities with what ITDP considers true BRT: Las Vegas, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Eugene, Ore. San Bernardino<\/a> is getting ready to open the sixth.<\/p>\n \u201cOther projects can be successful and praiseworthy, but they shouldn\u2019t be called BRT,\u201d Weinstock said. \u201cIn most but not all cases, they would be more successful if they were full BRT.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s not swayed by scaled-down projects that promise to add essential features later.<\/p>\n \u201cI have heard many times that a project can eventually become more,\u201d she said. \u201cI have yet to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n Los Angeles offers an interesting case study<\/a> in the distinction between BRT and lesser fast buses.<\/p>\n Its Orange Line<\/a> is a fully recognized BRT project that surpassed ridership expectations and was found by UC Berkeley researchers to alleviate traffic on the 101 Freeway, and was later extended as a result. It\u2019s complemented by the Metro Rapid, a series of bus lines that operate in mixed traffic that get most of their time savings by making fewer stops and taking advantage of transit signal priority, much like the Mid-City Rapid.<\/p>\n So What Does That Make the Mid-City Rapid?<\/strong><\/p>\n SANDAG\u2019s internal definitions<\/a> recognize the difference between BRT projects and an improved bus line.<\/p>\n The agency has referred to the new services that connect South Bay and Escondido to downtown via bus lanes on freeways as BRT. It distinguishes the mid-city line as a \u201crapid bus.\u201d Once all the lines are operating, though, MTS will kill the distinction, and brand all the vehicles under a single identity, The Rapid.<\/p>\n Appleyard said it\u2019s ultimately semantics.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all in the realm of, \u2018How do we make bus transit attractive, and improve its service?\u2019 That\u2019s the goal here,\u201d he said. \u201cThe other part is how to improve transit without going all the way to fixed rail.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the federal government seems torn.<\/p>\n The Federal Transit Administration\u2019s definition of BRT<\/a> provides some leeway: \u201ca flexible, high performance rapid transit mode that combines a variety of physical, operating and system elements into a permanently integrated system with a quality image and unique identity.\u201d<\/p>\n Basically: BRT is anything that\u2019s good.<\/p>\n But the FTA\u2019s New Starts program, the one expected to provide half of the funds for the $1.7 billion Mid Coast Trolley project<\/a>, requires dedicated bus lanes. No exceptions.<\/p>\n Since that\u2019s the program that can provide the most money to local projects, it\u2019s fair to say the federal government is trying to incentivize projects with dedicated right of way, Hinebaugh said.<\/p>\n
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