Bus Rapid Transit Without Dedicated Lines—Finding Out the Hard Way

San Diego's bus rapid transit line, open for nine months, hasn't improved transit service along El Cajon Boulevard. Critics blame cuts to the original plan.

1 minute read

July 27, 2015, 11:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Bus Only

Mikel Ortega / Flickr

"El Cajon Boulevard has a ways to go before it becomes the transit corridor planners envision," reports Zoe Schaver.

San Diego's Mid-City Rapid 215 route—a bus rapid transit (BRT) project that took a year to develop and cut many of the benefits of full BRT configuration along the way—has received poor reviews on multiple measures of transit service.

According to Schaver, "[t]he Rapid project, which took a decade to develop, was meant to follow the bus rapid transit, or BRT, model. Initial plans promised a dedicated lane for buses and transit stops with ticketing machines that would speed up the boarding process. Instead, it has a dedicated lane for a short stretch, but shares the road with other cars for most of its route."

The article goes on to explain the cuts (hint: "community pushback)" and begins to explain the implications of the route's poor performance through a corridor that has seen increasing amounts of development investment. 

Monday, July 20, 2015 in Voice of San Diego

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