Detroit Public Transportation: 2014 and beyond.

[royce]

Well considering the point of this is get more people to use transit ergo getting cars off the road, I'd say your point is moot.

We can either have dedicated lanes for the buses which will make them have faster service and have signal priority or we can have them mixed in with traffic which will make them slow in the heavy traffic you describe. Your pick.

How is having express buses "rapid" when they're going to be plain old buses mingling with the rest of traffic either on a major thoroughfare or on a congested freeway?

Well, if you can get more drivers to take the BRT, then that would lessen the traffic. I agree. Now, trying to convince those drivers to give up their cars will be the major issue that determines if BRT works or not. Also, what are the BRT stations going to do for commuters in the summer and winter. Are they going to warm up commuters in the winter and cool them down in the summer? A subway eliminates this problem and it's rapid. So, if you don't do a subway system, will a BRT system appeal to commuters?

Another issue I have with BRT deals with the dedicated lanes for BRT in the areas that have medians. Why cut through the medians with dedicated lanes when the lane closest to the median could serve as the dedicated lane? And another thing, how does the dedicated lanes for BRT accommodate left turns, especially Michigan lefts? In the renderings the dedicated lanes go right through the medians. How are cars gonna make left turns? These and many other issues remain for me when it comes to BRT. I'm not sold.