Peer-to-peer exchange on Bus Rapid Transit and transit priority practices in Los Angeles, New York, and Cleveland.
Los Angeles, California, United States
New York City, New York, United States
Peer-to-Peer Information Exchange on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Bus Priority Best Practices
Summary Information
This effort aimed to foster a dialogue among peers at transportation and planning agencies about their experiences with promoting public transit and, specifically, challenges faced related to Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) projects and the solutions developed in response.
Methodology
Agencies from many large cities around the United States participated in three peer-to-peer exchanges in New York City, Los Angeles, and Cleveland. The facilitated discussions were structured to address the barriers to BRT implementation on the streets of dense and/or highly-congested large urban centers with three prevailing themes: Network, Route, and Street Design; Traffic Operations; and Building Political, Interagency, and Stakeholder Support.
Findings
After deployment of BRT, bus speeds increased by 23 percent in highly transit-dependent urban core corridors in Los Angeles. This improvement was specifically linked to transit signal priority, fewer stops, and faster boarding and alighting. After deployment of Select Bus Service on New York City’s physically-constrained and congested Fordham Road, revenue bus speeds increased by more than 20 percent. In New York, this benefit was attributed to off-board payment and transit signal priority.
