For decades, major cities have faced critical levels of road congestion
and gridlock, and severe air pollution with its attendant health issues.
Officials at all levels of government have long understood the realization
that there are no easy solutions. Until recent times when confronted by
the public or the media, it was a relatively simple matter for officials
and elected politicians to ignore or deflect the issue through vague promises.
Against a rising groundswell of public concern for the health of our
cities, and against the backdrop of global warming, politicians are under
increasing pressure to deal with these issues.
However, we have a problem! Politicians often have a poor record of
accomplishment when it comes to making astute and informed decisions.
The DNA of politicians is quite different from you and me. Their hard
currency is in the form of votes, and not in dollars. Their stock in trade
seems to be how best to survive the vagaries of elected positions, rather
than effectively solving problems. On one hand, they whine about how impossible
it is to maintain fiscally responsible budgets, and eternally search out
new and innovative forms of taxation, yet on the other hand, they universally
share an unbridled, almost religious passion to spend huge sums of taxpayer
money on high profile, ‘white elephant’ projects. The higher
the profile, and the more expensive the concept, the more infatuated they
become!
Nowhere is this reckless passion to spend taxpayer money more evident
than when they address the issue of urban congestion and pollution. Politicians
invariably leapfrog every sensible and viable alternative, gravitating
to the most costly, and usually the most impractical of solutions.
Let me put the issue in a not so subtle way. Dedicated urban “Bus
Ways” and “Bus Rights-of-Way” without doubt offer the
most practical, most effective, and most economical solution to urban
gridlock. The rail alternative is usually the most costly and the most
impractical of all possible solutions. Whether suspended, underground,
or surface, as long as it has steel rails and carries an obscene price
tag, you can be sure that politicians will gravitate to this alternative
every time, each fighting for the right to have their name stamped all
over the project. Nearly every urban transportation study I have ever
come across seems to be prefaced by the word “rail”! In their
mindset, a “bus” alternative is virtually non-existent.
Here is the problem – and it directly falls into our own laps!
As an industry offering passenger services, we compete for business
directly with rail, air and the private automobile. However, we have nobody
out there selling the benefits of bus services against these other modes,
particularly the rail alternatives. I speak of the full range of bus services
– “seamless” multi-level services that include urban
transit, commuter, intercity, charter and tour, shuttle, community-based,
specialty services, and the wide array of vocational services. In fact,
a truly effective urban “Busways” system must include all
of these services, utilizing every type and style of bus – both
public and private - from 200-passenger multi-articulated BRT units to
upscale executive-class coach service.
It would be a milestone benefit to our industry as a whole if we could
somehow draw together a dedicated bus industry development/sales team,
armed with a spectacular presentation supported by meaningful data, that
details the virtues and the amazing benefits that a fully-fledged “Urban
Busways” system can bring to an urban center in their need to solve
this most critical of issues!
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