RTD weighs 11 miles of rail against 100 miles of bus at half the cost - The Denver Post
Building one 11-mile
segment of commuter rail from Westminster to Broomfield could cost as
much as $681 million while about 100 miles of enhanced bus service in
the northern suburbs would cost roughly half that and serve nearly
eight times as many passengers, according to an analysis for the
Regional Transportation District.
1 comment:
And $165 million for WES would have purchased 388 40' buses, 253 articulated buses, or 165 BRT buses (articulated, hybrid-electric).
SWIFT, a BRT system in Snohomish County that was built at the same time as WES, is also a suburb-to-suburb system, and is 16.7 miles (just shy of two miles longer than WES) cost only $29 million - for the cost of WES, we could have had 5.7 BRT lines, providing seven day a week, 12 minute headway service, rather than five day a week, 30 minute headway, weekday rush hour service, at $17/boarding ride. (And, SWIFT actually helped Community Transit lower its operating cost, because it replaced a higher cost local bus service with one that has higher reliability and lower fuel expense, plus higher ridership. It was reported to have only a $1/boarding ride subsidy, which is quite a bit lower than MAX.)
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